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CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  CRUZ 


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Gift  ol 

Cabrillo  Colleoe 


SANTA     CRUZ 


.rf-*^- 


rtarris 
Lavini 

^ 


O  IT  II 


COUNTRYMEN: 


OR 


BRIEF     MEMOIRS 


EMINENT    AMERICANS, 


BY  BENSON  J.  LOSSING, 

AUTHOR  or  "THE  PICTORIAL  FI  ELD-BOO-K~"O  F  THE  BE  VOLUTI  ON,"  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED  BY  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  THREE  PORTRAITS, 

BY     LO88ING     AND     BABBITT. 


NEW    YORK: 

ENSIGN,    B  R  I  D  G  M  A  N    &    FANNING, 

156    WILLIAM     STREET. 

1  8  5  5  . 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1855,  by 

ENSIGN,   BRIDGMAN,   A  FANNING, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


%&-  In  the  note  on  page  196,  it  is  erroneously  stated  that  J.  G.  W.  Trumbull, 
Esq.,  of  Norwich,  Connecticut,  had  been  governor  of  that  State. 


F..««D    BY 


47 


PEBFATOEY    EEMAEKS. 


"  T  have  often  heard,"  says  Sallust,  "  that  Quintus  Maximus, 
Publius  Scipio,  and  other  renowned  persons  of  the  Roman 
Commonwealth,  used  to  say  that,  whenever  they  beheld  the  images 
of  their  ancestors,  they  felt  their  minds  vehemently  excited  to  virtue. 
It  could  not  be  the  wax,  nor  the  marble,  that  possessed  .this  power ; 
but  the  recollections  of  their  great  actions  kindled  a  generous  flame 
in  their  breasts,  which  could  not  be  quelled  till  they,  also,  by 
Virtue,  had  acquired  equal  fame  and  glory." 

With  the  earnest  desire  of  producing  precisely  such  effects  up- 
on the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  young  people  of  our  country,  this 
volume  has  been  prepared ;  this  CENOTAPH — this  honorary  monu- 
ment— has  been  erected.  The  Roman  youth  were  excited  to  great 
and  virtuous  deeds  by  the  sight  of  material  objects  and  the  voices 
of  Orators ;  our  youth  have  their  aspirations  for  noble  achievements 
awakened  and  cherished  more  by  the  silent  yet  potential  ministra- 
tions of  Books  which  tell  of  men  worthy  to  be  imitated  as  examples, 
or  studied  as  warnings,  than  by  merely  sensuous  impressions. 

Biography  is  History  teaching  by  example.  It  is  the  basis  of  all 
historical  structures.  The  Chronicles  of  the  nations  are  composed 


yi  PREFACE. 


of  the  sayings  and  doings  of  their  men  and  women.     These  make  up 
the  sum  of  History. 

The  materials  for  this  book  have  been  drawn  from  the  Annals  of 
the  United  States  of  America,  as  Colonies  and  as  a  Federal  Republic. 
Such  men  have  been  selected,  as  examples,  who  seemed  to  illustrate 
by  their  lives,  some  special  phase  in  the  political,  religious,  and 
social  life  of  our  country,  during  its  wonderful  progress  from  its 
earliest  settlement  until  the  present  time.  I  have  endeavored  to 
present  such  prominent  points  of  character  and  deeds,  in  their  lives, 
as  would  give  the  reader  a  general  idea  of  their  relative  position  to 
the  history  of  their  times  ;  and  have  also  aimed  to  make  the  brief 
sketches  so  attractive  and  suggestive,  as  to  excite  a  desire  in  the 
young  to  know  more  of  these  characters  and  their  historical  relations, 
and  thus  to  persuade  them  to  enter  upon  the  pleasant  and  profitable 
employment  of  studying  the  prominent  persons  and  events  of  our 
Republic.  If  this  volume  shall  achieve  that  result,  the  pleasure 
experienced  by  the  Author  in  the  preparation  of  it,  will  be  distrib- 
uted according  to  his  desire. 


YORK,  April,  1855. 


\ 

a 

INDEX 

A   PORTRAIT   ACCOMPANIES   THOSE   MARKED   WITH   AN   *. 

PAGE 

PAGE, 

PAGE 

A. 

C. 

1  Flint,  Timothy      . 

.        391 

Adams,  Samuel 
*  Adams,  John 
*  Adams,  John  Q.     . 
Allerton,  Isaac 

76    Calvert,  Leonard  . 
87  *Calhoun,  John  C. 
809    Canonicus 
14  "Carroll,  John 

223  *Franklin,  Benjamin 
326i  Franklin,  William 
^5    Francis,  John  W.,  jr. 
49  *Fulton,  Robert 

39 
.      129 
.      406 

.      155 

Allison,  Francis     . 

47  *Carroll,  Charles      . 

146 

Alexander,  William 

106    Carver,  Jonathan  . 

74                          G. 

Allen,  Ethan 
Allstou,  Washington     . 
*Ames,  Fisher 
Anderson,  Richard  C.    . 
Armstrong,  John  . 
*  Arnold,  Benedict 
Asbury,  Francis    . 
Ashe,  John     . 
Ashman,  Jehudi    . 
*  As  tor,  John  Jacob 
*Audubon,  John  J. 

B. 
Bacon,  Nathaniel  . 
*Bainbridge,  William     . 
*Baldwin,  Thomas 
Baldwin,  Abraham 
*Ballou,  Hosea 
Bartram,  John 

128    Cary,  Lott      . 
262  *Carey,  Matthew    . 
71i  Gaswell,  Richard  . 
299  *Channing,  William  E.  . 
316    Chauncey,  Isaac    . 
135    Chittenden,  Thomas      . 
-J5  *Church,  Benjamin 
99  *Claiborne,  William  C.  C 
325  *CIarke,  George  R. 
379  *Clay,  Henry  . 
272  *ciinton,  Dewitt     . 
Clinton,  George    . 
*Colden,  Cadwallader     . 
42    Colburn,  Zerah 
340    Colles,  Christopher 
204    Cooper,  Thomas    . 
256  *Cooper,  James  F. 
318    Copley,  John  S.     . 
45    Cornplanter  . 

Q.V?    Gadsden,  Christopher 
.a    Galloway,  Joseph 
o?$    Gallatin,  Albert     . 
%    Gallaudet,  Thomas  H. 
?|f    Gaston,  William    . 
-.„    Gates,  Horatio 
q*o    Girard,  Stephen    . 
?OQ    Godfrey,  Thomas 
ing    Gordon,  William  . 
„-„  *Graham,  Isabella  . 
OOQ    Gray,  William 
rfoo  *Greene,  Nathaniel 
o-j    Greene,  Joseph 
(>QR  *Greenough,  Horatio 
2oq    Gridley,  Richard  . 
g£[    Grundy,  Felix 

52 
231                           H. 

109 
72 
.      321 
.      881 
.      850 
.      295 
.      271 
(59 
.      166 
.      332 
.      214 
59V 
.      130 
.      393 
.      122 
.      366 

Barlow,  Joel  . 

117  *Coxe,  Tench  . 

.  ^    Habersham,  Joseph 

134 

Bard,  Samuel 

118    Craik,  James 

064    Hale,  Nathan 

.      212 

Barney,  Joshua 
Barry,  John   . 

120    Crockett,  David    . 
121    Cruger,  Henry 

'l\  *IIamilton,  Alexander 
26b  *Hancock,  John      . 

.      213 
.      159 

Barton,  William    . 

137 

Harnett,  Cornelius 

83 

Bayard,  James  A. 

267                           D. 

Harrison,  Benjamin 

.      103 

Belknap,  Jeremy  . 

104    Dana,  Francis 

'    92  *Harrison,  AVilliarn  H. 

.      240 

Biddle,  Nicholas    . 

346    Davie,  William  R. 

89    Harrington,  Jonathan 

376 

Bland,  Richard      . 

142  \  Davidson,  Lucretia  M. 

315  *Hayne,  Robert  Y. 

.       280 

Blennerhassett,  Harman 
*Booue,  Daniel 

377  1  Day,  Stephen 
192;  Deane,  Silas  . 

11    Hedding,  Elijah    . 
79  *Henry,  Patrick      . 

.      38-2 
.       1-J6 

Boudinot,  Elias     . 

133    Dearborn,  Henry  . 

328    Henderson,  Richard 

.      180 

Boudoin,  James    . 

65    Decatur,  Stephen 

343    Hicks,  Elias  . 

.      268 

Bowditch,  Nathaniel     . 

246    De  Kalb,  Baron     . 

291    Holmes,  Abiel       . 

.      329 

Boyleston,  Zabdiel 

61  *Dickenson,  John   . 

209    Hooker,  Thomas  . 

26 

Bradford,  William 
Brainerd,  David    . 

62  1  Downing,  Andrew  J.    . 
101    Drayton;  William  11.    . 

375  *Hopkinson,  Francis 
86    Hopkins,  Samuel 

57 
.      240 

Brant,  Joseph 

158    Dunlap,  William  . 

337    Hopkins,  Stephen 

.      320 

Brewster,  William 
Brooks,  John 

10  *Dwight,  Timothy 
145 

107    Hopkinson,  Joseph 
Howard,  John  E.  . 

.      370 
.      141 

Brown,  Charles  B. 

290                           -g 

Howe,  Robert 

.      173 

Brown,  Jacob 
Brown,  James 
Brown,  Moses 
Bnel,  Jesse    . 

348  *Edwards,  Jonathan 
071    Eliot,  John    . 
35g  *Ellsworth,  Oliver 

m    Hull,  William 
\:,    Humphreys,  David 
102    Hutchinson,  Thomas 

.      219 
215 

.        58 

*Burr,  Aaron  . 

253                           ,-, 

T 

Burke,  JSdanus    . 

258                           F. 

Jim 

Burnett,  Robert    . 
Byrd,  William 

401  *Ferguson,  Catharine     . 
31    Fitch,  John    . 

404   Inman,  Henry 
93    Izard,  Ralph 

.      386 

.      282 

viii 

INDEX. 

J. 

PAGE 

PAGE                                                                 PAOK 

*Jackson,  James     . 
*Jackson,  Andrew  . 

131    Muhlenberg,  Peter 
244  *Murray,  Lindley   . 

210  *Shelby,  Isaac 
68    Sherman,  Roger    . 

98 
168 

*Jav   Tohn 

171 

*Slater,  Samuel 

313 

*Jefferson,  Thomas 
Johnson,  William 
Johnson,  Richard  M.    . 

188                       N. 
100    Nelson,  Thomas,  jr. 
367  *Newell,  Harriet     . 

Smith,  John  . 
HI    Smith,  Samuel 
285    Spencer,  Ambrose 

34 
324 
392 

*Jones,  John  Paul  . 
Jones,  David 
*Judson,  Adoniram 
*Judson,  Anne  11.  . 

95 
140                           Q 
864 
•^•Q    Oglcthorpe,  James  E. 
*Olin,  Stephen 

Stan  dish,  Miles 
Stark,  John    . 
Steuben,  Baron  De 
51    Stevens,  Ebeuezer 
•      384    stiles,  Ezra    .        .        . 

13 
248 
144 
148 
49 

Osceola  . 

357  *Story,  Joseph 

289 

. 
*Kent,  James 

*0tis,  James    . 
335    Otis,  Harrison  G.  . 

.      162  *Stuart,  Gilbert  C.  . 
.      402  *Stuyvesant,  Peter 

114 
22 

*King,  Rufus  . 

150 

Sullivan,  John 

347 

Kinnison,  David    . 

403                           p 

Sumter,  Thomas   . 

236 

*Kirklaud,  Samuel 
Knox,  Henry 
Kosciusczko,  Thaddeus 

97?    Paine,  Thomas      . 
QAfl  *Paine,  Robert  Treat 
Patterson,  Robert  M. 

.      198 
.      228                           T. 
.      396   Talbot,  Silas  .        .        . 

211 

Peale,  Charles  W. 

.      170  *Taylor,  Zachary     . 

353 

. 
La  Fayette,  M.  do 

*Penn,  William       . 
287  *perry,  Oliver  H.    . 

24    Telfair,  Edward    . 
.      348    Tennent,  William 

252 
116 

Lamb,  John  . 
Langdon,  John    '  . 
Laurens,  Henry     . 

263    Peters,  Richard     . 
154    Phipps,  William    . 
161    Philip,  King  .        . 

.      169    Thacher,  William 
21    Thomas,  Isaiah 
38  *Thomson,  Charles 

254 
149 
46 

Lawrence,  James 
Ledyard,  John 

352    philipse,  Mary      . 
»2    Physic,  Philip  S.   . 

227  *Trumbull,  Jonathan     . 
.      330  *Trumbull,  John    . 

43 

196 

Lee,  Ann 

M    Pickens,  Andrew 

.      194    Trumbull,  John    . 

259 

Lee,  Henry    . 

1°2    Pickering,  Timothy 

.      165 

Lee,  Richard  H.    . 

186    pierce,  Benjamin, 

.      283                           TT 

Lee,  Charles  . 

307    Pike,  Zebulon  M. 

191 

OT 

Lee,  Arthur   . 
Legare,  Hugh  S.    . 

234  *pinckney,  Charles  C. 
308    Pinckney,  Thomas 

:  143  Uncas  •    •    •    • 

.      230                         ye 

01 

Leisler,  Jacob 
Lillington,  John  A. 

64  *Pinkney,  William 
"4  *Pocahontas    . 

237  *yan  Rensselaer,  Stephen 

260 

Lincoln,  BenjamLi 

298  *p0ik,  James  K.      . 

388                                             ^rr 

*Livingston,  Robert  R. 

105    Pontiac 

70                         "' 

*Livingston,  Edward 

174    Porter,  David 

302  *WTarren,  Mercy      . 

85 

*Livingston,  John  H. 
Lovel,  John   . 
Lyman,  Phineas    . 

200    Preble,  Edward     . 
97    Prentiss.  Sargcant  S. 
H3    Prescott,  William 
*Putnam,  Rufus     . 

199    Warren,  Joseph    . 
397    Warner,  Seth 
175  *Washington,  George     . 
182  'Washington,  Martha     . 

190 
206 
55 
119 

M. 

Putnam,  Israel 

226    Wayne,  Anthony  . 

286 

*Macdonough,  Thomas 
Macomb,  Alexander 
M'Intosh,  Lachlin 
M'Kean  Thomas 

323 
303  !                          Q. 
279    Quincy,  Josiah,  jr. 

Weare,  Meshech    . 
*Webster,  Noah      . 
1CT*  Webster,  Daniel    . 
•bV*Weems,  Mason  L. 

183 

224 
276      • 
112 

Macon,  Nathaniel 

812                            -n 

*West,  Benjamin    . 

29 

Madison,  James    . 
*Madison,  James    . 
Manly,  John  . 
*Marion,  Francis    . 
*Marshall,  John 
Martin,  Francois  X. 
Mason,  John  . 
*Mather,  Cotton      . 
Mather,  Increase  . 
Meigs,  Return  J.   . 
Mercer,  Hugh 
Miantonomoh 
*Mitchill,  Samuel  L. 
Milnor,  James 
Miller,  William     . 
*Monroe,  James 

QQS  *Ramsay,  David      . 
|14   Randolph,  Peyton 
-104.    Randolph,  Edmund 
2i6  *Randolph,  John     . 
243  *Red  Jacket    . 
28    Reed,  Joseph 
27  *Rittenhouse,  David 
48    Rivington,  James 
362    Rodders,  John 
396    Rogers,  Robert 
20;  Ruggles,  Timothy 
232  *Rumford,  Count    . 
360  *Rush,  Benjamin    . 
387    Rutledge,  John 
--804 

*Wheatley,  Phillis 
.      167    Wheaton,  Henry  . 
84    Wheelock,  Eleazer 
.      170  *White,  William     . 
.      292    Whitney,  Eli 
.      264  *Whipple,  Abraham       . 
.      207    AVeiser,  Conrad     . 
35  *AATilliams,  Roger    . 
.      208    Williamson,  Hugh 
.      372    Willett,  Marinus    . 
77    AVilson,  Alexander 
73  *Winthrop,  John     . 
.      269    W'inslow,  Edward 
78    Winthrop,  John    . 
.      153    AVirt,  AVilliam 
Witherspoon,  -Jonn 

249 
334 
32 
53 
132 
220 
251 
18 
156 
247 
181 
9 
23 
44 
218 
179 

Montgomery,  Richard  . 
*Morris,  Robert      . 

157                           S. 
90    St.  Clair 

Wrolcott,  Oliver     . 
.      242    Wooster,  David     . 

238 
322 

Morris,  Gouverneur 
Morgan,  Daniel 
*Motte,  Rebecca     . 

202  *Schuyler,  Philip    . 
222    Seabiiry,  Samuel  . 
75    Sears,  Isaac    . 

.      189,  Woods,  Leonard    . 
.      110    Wright,  Silas 
.      251    Wright,  Benjamin 

890 
355 
363 

Moultrie,  William 

262  i  Sevler,John  . 

.      331  1  Wythe,  George      . 

278 

JOHN    WINTHKOP. 

rPHE  PILGRIM  FATHERS'  planted  the  seeds  of  the  Plymouth  Colony,  amid  the 
JL  December  snows,  in  1620.  Eight  years  afterward  other  emigrants,  with 
John  Endicott  at  their  head,  as  governor,  founded  the  colony  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Bay,  at  Salem.  In  1629,  John  Winthrop,  a  wealthy  Puritan,  resolved 
to  convert  his  large  estate  into  money,  and  link  his  fortunes  with  this  new 
colony.  He  was  chosen  to  succeed  Endicott,  as  governor,  before  he  left  England, 
and  soon  after  his  arrival  in  June,  1630,  he  chose  the  peninsula  of  Shawmut,  on 


1.  In  the  year  1608,  John  Robinson,  a  pious  pastor  of  a  flock  in  the  north  of  England,  who  would  not 
conform  to  the  rituals  of  the  Established  Church,  fled,  with  his  people,  to  Holland,  to  avoid  persecution. 
They  felt  that  they  were  only  Pilgrims,  and  assumed  that  name.  Toward  the  close  of  1620.  about  100 
of  them,  including  women  and  children,  arrived  on  the  shores  of  Cape  Cod  Bay  in  the  ship  May  Flower, 
and  planted  a  colony  where  the  town  of  Plymouth  now  stands.  They  are  known  as  The  Pilgrim 
Fathers. 


10  WILLIAM  BREWSTER. 

which  the  city  of  Boston  now  stands,  for  a  residence,  because  pure  water  gushed 
from  its  hills.  There  he  founded  the  future  metropolis  of  New  England.1 

John  Winthrop  was  born  in  Groton,  Suffolk  county,  England,  on  the  12th  of 
June,  1587,  and  was  educated  for  the  profession  of  the  law.  Theological  studies 
possessed  greater  charms  for  him,  and  the  peculiar  seriousness  of  his  mind  led 
him  to  Puritanism,2  as  he  found  it  at  the  beginning  of  King  Charles'  reign. 
Because  of  his  many  admirable  qualities,  he  was  chosen  governor  under  the 
charter  granted  in  1629,  and  was  therefore  really  the  first  governor  of  Massa- 
chusetts, notwithstanding  the  earlier  services  of  Endicott,  as  head  of  the  actual 
settlers. 

Winthrop  held  his  first  court,  composed  of  deputy-governor  Dudley  and  mem- 
bers of  the  Council,  on  the  23d  of  August,  1630,  under  a  large  tree  at  Charles- 
town  ;  and  the  first  topic  brought  under  consideration  was  a  suitable  provision 
for  the  support  of  the  gospel.  Mr.  Winthrop  was  a  man  of  great  benevolence. 
It  was  his  practice  to  send  his  servants  among  the  people  at  meal-time,  on 
trifling  errands,  with  instructions  to  report  the  condition  of  their  tables.  When 
informed  of  any  who  appeared  to  want,  he  always  sent  a  supply  from  his  own 
abundance.  He  was  also  merciful  as  a  magistrate,  for  he  considered  it  expe- 
dient to  temper  the  severity  of  law  with  more  lenity  in  an  infant  colony  than  in 
a  settled  state.  Because  of  his  lenity  toward  offenders,  he  was  charged,  in  1636, 
of  dealing  "too  remissly  in  point  of  justice."  The  ministers  decided  that  "the 
safety  of  the  gospel "  required  more  rigor ;  and,  contrary  to  the  motions  of  his 
own  liberal  heart,  he  was  obliged  to  yield.  So  zealous  were  the  chief  men  of 
the  colony  in  favor  of  rigorous  discipline,  that  deputy  Dudley,  a  bigot  of  the 
strictest  stamp,  was  chosen  governor,  in  place  of  Winthrop,  in  1634;  but  the 
latter  was  re-elected  in  1637,  and  held  the  office  of  chief  magistrate  most  of  the 
time,  until  his  death. 

Governor  Winthrop  came  to  America  a  wealthy  man,  but  died  quite  poor. 
His  benevolent  heart  kept  his  hand  continually  open,  and  he  dispensed  comforts 
to  the  needy,  without  stint.  He  regarded  all  men  as  equally  dear  in  the  eyes 
of  their  Maker,  yet  his  early  education  blinded  him  to  the  dignity  of  true  democ- 
racy. He  regarded  it  with  much  disfavor ;  and  when  the  people  of  Connecticut 
asked  his  advice  concerning  the  organization  of  a  government,  he  replied,  "  The 
best  part  of  a  community  is  always  the  least,  and  of  that  least  part  the  wiser 
are  still  less."  He  had  little  faith  in  "  the  people."  Worn  out  with  toils  and 
afflictions,  this  faithful  and  upright  magistrate  entered  upon  his  final  rest  on  the 
26th  of  March,  1649,  at  the  age  of  sixty-one  years. 


WILLIAM    BREWSTER. 

ONE  of  the  noblest  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  was  William  Bre  wster,  the  spiritual 
guide  of  those  who  landed  on  Plymouth  Rock,  in  bleak  December,  1620. 
He  was  born  in  England  in  1560,  and  was  educated  at  Cambridge.  William 
Davidson,  Queen  Elizabeth's  ambassador  to  Holland,  was  his  friend  and  patron 
in  youth.  When  a  wicked  policy  caused  the  Queen  to  disgrace  and  even  de- 
stroy innocent  men,  Davidson,  who  had  been  appointed  Secretary  of  State,  was 
a  great  sufferer.  Brewster,  with  a  grateful  loyalty,  adhered  to  him  as  long  as 

1.  Boston  was  so  named  in  honor  of  John  Cotton,  minister  of  Boston,  England,  who  came  to  America 
in  1633,  and  was  appointed  teacher  in  the  church  in  Winthrop's  capital. 

2.  Those  who  would  not  conform  to  the  rituals  of  the  Established  Church  of  England,  and  professed 
great  purity  of  life,  as  well  as  of  doctrine,  were  called  PURITANS,  in  derision.    It  has  since  become  an 
honorable  title. 


STEPHEN  DAY.  11 


he  could  serve  him,  and  then  retired  among  his  friends  in  the  North  of  England. 
His  religious  zeal  there  burned  brightly,  and  his  hand  and  purse  were  ever  open 
in  well-doing.  He  finally  became  disgusted  with  the  assumptions  and  tyranny 
of  the  Established  Church,  and  joined  a  society  of  separatists,  under  the  pastoral 
care  of  John  Robinson.  Mr.  Brewster's  house  was  their  Sabbath  meeting-place 
for  worship ;  and  when,  finally,  these  non-conformists  were  obliged  to  flee  from 
hierarchical  persecution,  that  good  Christian  attempted  to  leave  friends  and 
country,  and  follow.  He  was  arrested,  with  others,  and  imprisoned  at  Boston, 
in  Lincolnshire,  in  1607  ;  but  as  soon  as  he  obtained  his  liberty,  he  sailed  for 
Holland.  His  estate  had  become  exhausted,  and  at  Leyden  he  opened  a  school 
for  instruction  in  the  English  language.  He  also  established  a  printing-press 
there,  and  published  several  books. 

Mr.  Brewster  was  greatly  beloved,  and  was  chosen  an  elder  in  the  church  at 
Leyden,  over  which  his  old  pastor  presided.  It  was  in  that  capacity  that  he 
sailed,  with  "  the  youngest  and  strongest"  of  Mr.  Robinson's  flock,  in  the  May 
Flower,  late  in  1620.  He  suffered  and  rejoiced  with  the  PILGRIMS,  in  all  their 
strange  vicissitudes ;  and  for  almost  nine  years,  he  was  the  only  regular  dis- 
penser of  the  "Word  of  Life  to  the  Puritans,  in  the  little  church  at  Plymouth. 
He  preached  twice  every  Sunday ;  but  could  never  be  persuaded  to  administer 
the  sacraments.  It  was  in  that  church  at  Plymouth  that  the  largest  liberty  was 
first  granted  to  the  laity,  It  was  a  common  practice  for  a  question  to  be  pro- 
pounded on  the  Sabbath,  and  all  who  felt  "gifted"  were  allowed  to  speak 
upon  it.  This  liberty  finally  became  a  great  annoyance  to  the  ministers,  and 
much  difficulty  ensued.  It  had  free  scope  while  Elder  Brewster  officiated,  but 
when  Rev.  Ralph  Smith  was  settled  as  pastor  over  the  Plymouth  church,  he  en- 
deavored to  check  it.  Elder  Brewster  died  on  the  16th  of  April,  1644,  at  the 
age  of  eighty-three  years. 


STEPHEN     DAY. 

THE  first  printer  who  practiced  his  art  within  the  domain  of  the  United  States 
was  Stephen  Day,  a  native  of  London.  The  Rev.  Jesse  G  lover,  one  of  the 
earliest  patrons  of  Harvard  College,  presented  that  institution  with  a  font  of 
type,  and  others  contributed  money  to  buy  a  press.  In  1638,  Mr.  Glover,  then 
in  London,  engaged  Day  to  accompany  him  to  America,  to  take  charge  of  the 
printing-house  at  Cambridge.  Glover  died  on  the  voyage,  but  Day  arrived  in 
safety,  with  his  patron's  widow  and  children,  and  commenced  work  in  January, 
1639.  His  first  production  was  The  Freeman's  Oath;  and  soon  afterward  he 
printed  an  Almanac  made  by  a  mariner  named  Pierce,  in  which  the  year  begins 
with  March.  The  first  look — the  first  one  printed  in  America — was  the  Psalms 
in  Meter,  containing  three  hundred  pages,  and  was  known  as  The  Bay  Psalm 
Book,  He  printed  several  Almanacs,  and  also  some  astronomical  calculations  by 
Urian  Oakes,  then  a  youth,  and  afterward  President  of  Harvard  College. 

Day  was  an  unskilful  printer ;  yet,  being  the  only  one  in  the  colony,  he  was 
so  much  esteemed,  that  the  general  court  of  Massachusetts  granted  him  three 
hundred  acres  of  land,  in  1641.  He  frequently  complained  that  his  printing  was 
unprofitable.  He  continued  in  the  business  until  the  beginning  of  1649,  when 
his  establishment  went  into  the  hands  of  Samuel  Greene,  who  came  to  Cam- 
bridge with  his  parents  at  the  age  of  sixteen  years.  Greene  continued  the 
business  until  near  the  close  of  the  century,  and  many  writers  have  spoken  of 
him  as  the  first  printer.  Day  expired  at  Cambridge,  «n  the  22d  of  December, 
1668,  at  the  age  of  about  fifty-eight  years.. 


12 


BENJAMIN  CHURCH. 


BENJAMIN    CHURCH. 

"MEXT  to  Miles  Standish,  the  warrior-pilgrim  of  the  May  Flower,  Benjamin 
ll  Church  was  the  most  distinguished  military  hero  in  early  New  England 
history.  He  was  bora  at  Plymouth,  Massachusetts,  in  1639,  and  was  instructed 
in  the  trade  of  a  carpenter,  by  his  father.  He  went  to  Duxbury  to  reside,  and 
was  pursuing  his  vocation  there  when  King  Philip's  war  broke  out.1  That  great 
chief  of  the  Wampanoags  had  long  kept  inviolate  the  treaty  made  with  the 

white  people  by  his  father,  Massasoit;   but  when  provocations  multiplied when 

he  saw  spreading  settlements  reducing  his  domains,  acre  by  acre,  breaking  up 
his  hunting  grounds,  diminishing  his  fisheries,  and  menacing  his  nation  with 
servitude  or  annihilation,— his  patriotism  was  aroused,  and  he  willingly  listened 
to  the  hot  young  warriors  around  him,  who  counselled  a  war  of  extermination 
against  the  English.  Philip  struck  the  first  blow  at  Swanzey,  thirty-five  miles 
south-west  from  Plymouth ;  and  for  almost  a  year  this  dreadful  war  went  on, 
and  extended  even  to  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut  river.  Nearly  all  of  the 
New  England  tribes  joined  Philip  in  his  enterprise.  The  white  people  banded, 
and  struck  the  savages  with  vigorous  blows  in  all  directions.  Among  their 

1.  Philip  was  a  son  of  Massasoit,  and  he  and  his  brother  were  named  respectively  Philip  and  Alex- 
ander, by  the  white  people,  in  compliment  to  their  brnvery.  Because,  after  the  death  of  his  father,  he 
became  chief  sachem  of  his  powerful  tribe,  he  was  called  King  Philip.— See  page  38. 


MILES  STANDISH.  13 


leaders,  Captain  Church  was  the  bravest  of  the  brave;  and  in  the  Spring  of  1676 
he  completely  broke  the  power  of  the  New  England  tribes.  Almost  three 
thousand  Indians  had  been  slain  or  had  bowed  in  submission,  and  Philip  was  a 
hunted  fugitive.  He  was  chased  from  place  to  place,  and  refused  to  yield.  He 
cleft  the  head  of  a  warrior  who  dared  to  propose  submission ;  and  a  curse  upon 
the  white  people  was  ever  upon  his  lips.  At  length  the  "  last  of  the  Wampa- 
noags "  was  compelled  to  yield  to  the  pressure  of  circumstances,  He  went 
stealthily  back  to  the  home  of  his  fathers,  at  Mount  Hope.  Soon  his  wife  and 
son  were  made  prisoners,  and  his  spirit  drooped.  "Now  my  heart  breaks," 
said  the  brave  warrior ;  "  I  am  ready  to  die."  A  few  days  afterward  a  faithless 
Indian  shot  him,  in  a  swamp,  and  Captain  Church,  with  his  own  sword,  cut  off 
the  dead  sachem's  head.  Lacking  the  magnanimity  of  a  true  soldier,  the  pro- 
fessed Christian  leader  disfigured  the  senseless  body,  then  quartered  it,  and  hung 
it  upon  trees,  declaring,  "Forasmuch  as  he  caused  many  an  Englishman's 
body  to  lie  unburied  and  rot  above  the  ground,  not  one  of  his  bones  shall  be 
buried."  The  chieftain's  head  was  carried  to  Plymouth  on  a  pole,  where  it  was 
exposed  for  several  years,  and  his  right  hand  was  sent  to  the  governor  of  Mas- 
sachusetts. The  rude  sword  of  Church  which  cut  off  Philip's  head  is  now  a 
cherished  relic  in  the  library  of  the  Historical  Society  of  the  "Old  Bay  State." 

If  we  censure  Church's  want  of  magnanimity  as  a  soldier,  what  shall  we  say 
of  the  Christian  charity  of. the  Plymouth  people  in  the  disposal  of  King  Philip's 
son.  It  was  a  subject  for  serious  consideration.  Some  of  the  elders  of  the 
church  proposed  putting  him  to  death ;  while  the  more  merciful  ones  proposed 
to  sell  him  into  slavery  in  Bermuda.  The  most  profitable  measure  appeared  the 
kindest,  and  the  innocent  child  was  sold  into  perpetual  bondage. 

Captain  Church  lived  many  years  after  the  war,  at  different  places  in  the 
vicinity  of  Narraganset  Bay,  in  Rhode  Island.  His  last  place  of  residence  was 
Little  Compton,  where,  on  the  17th  of  January,  1718,  he  was  thrown  from  a 
horse.  He  was  very  corpulent,  and  the  shock  of  his  fall  ruptured  a  blood 
vessel,  which  caused  his  death  in  the  course  of  a  few  hours,  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
nine  years. 


MILES    STANDISH. 

THE  "  Hero  of  New  England,"  as  Captain  Standish  is  called,  was,  like  many 
other  heroes  and  great  men,  rather  diminutive  in  person.  Hubbard,  the  his- 
torian, says,  when  speaking  of  him,  "A  little  chimney  is  soon  fired:  so  was  the 
Plymouth  captain,  a  man  of  very  small  stature,  yet  of  a  very  hot  and  angry 
temper."  He  was  born  in  Lancashire,  England,  about  the  year  1584.  He  was 
a  soldier  by  profession,  and  was  serving  in  the  Netherlands  when  Mr.  Robinson, 
'with  his  PILGRIM  flock,  settled  at  Leyden.  There  he  joined  the  Puritans,  and 
came  with  them  to  America,  in  the  May  Flower.  When  that  vessel  anchored  in 
Cape  Cod  Bay,  and  it  was  thought  expedient  to  explore  the  bleak  shore  to  find 
a  good  landing-place,  Standish  was  among  the  first  to  volunteer  for  the  service. 
He  was  one  of  those  who  passed  the  first  Christian  Sabbath,  after  their  arrival, 
in  deep  snow  upon  a  barren  island  in  Plymouth  harbor ;  and  he  was  the  second 
man  who  stepped  upon  Plymouth  Rock. 

Standish  was  very  serviceable  to  the  English  when  the  Indians  showed  signs 
of  hostility,  and  they  relied  much  upon  his  military  skill  and  personal  bravery. 
Wherever  the  duties  of  his  profession  called  him,  there  he  was  always  found. 
Two  years  after  the  establishment  of  the  Puritans  at  Plymouth,  he  was  called  to 


14  ISAAC  ALLERTON. 


protect  a  new  colony  at  Wissagusset  (now  Weymouth),  who  had  exasperated 
the  Indians  by  begging  and  stealing.  They  had  been  sent  over  by  a  wealthy 
London  merchant,  and  most  of  them  were  quite  unfit  for  the  business  of  found- 
ing a  state.  The  Indians  resolved  to  destroy  them ;  but,  through  the  agency 
of  Massasoit,  a  firm  friend  of  the  English,  the  conspiracy  was  revealed  to  the 
Plymouth  people  in  time  for  Captain  Standish  to  march  thither  with  a  small 
company  and  avert  the  blow.  When  he  arrived,  his  anger  was  fiercely  kindled 
by  the  insolence  of  Pecksuot,  the  chief,  and  his  few  followers.  Pecksuot 
sharpened  his  knife  in  the  presence  of  Standish,  and  said,  "  Though  you  are  a 
great  captain,  you  are  but  a  little  man ;  and  though  I  be  no  sachem,  yet  I  am 
a  man  of  great  strength  and  courage."  Standish  had  the  prudence  to  check 
his  resentment ;  but  the  next  day,  when  the  chief,  and  about  the  same  number 
of  his  followers  as  Slandish  had  with  him,  were  in  a  room  with  the  white 
people,  the  captain  gafre  a  signal,  and  five  of  the  savages  were  slam.  Standish 
snatched  Pecksuot's  knife  from  him,  and  with  it  slew  its  owner.  When  Mr. 
Robinson  (the  original  pastor  of  the  PILGRIMS,  and  who  remained  in  Holland) 
heard  of  this  event,  he  wrote  to  the  Church  of  Plymouth  "to  consider  the  dis- 
position of  their  captain,  who  was  of  a  warm  temper.  He  hoped  that  the  Lord 
had  sent  him  among  them  for  good,  if  they  used  him  right ;  but  he  doubted 
whether  there  was  not  wanting  that  tenderness  of  the  life  of  man,  made  after 
God's  image,  which  was  meet ;  and  he  thought  that  it  would  have  been  happy 
if  they  had  converted  some  before  they  had  killed  any." 

Captain  Standish  settled  in  Duxbury,  Massachusetts,  about  1631 ;  and  a  place 
near  his  residence  is  still  called  Captain's  Hill.  During  almost  the  whole  time 
of  his  residence  in  the  colony,  he  was  an  assistant  magistrate.  He  died  at  his 
house  in  Duxbury,  in  the  year  1656. 


ISAAC    ALLEKTpN. 

^FHE  May  Flower  passengers  may  all  be  considered  "  distinguished  Americans," 
J-  because  they  left  their  birth-land  forever,  and  became  founders  and  citizens 
of  a  new  empire  in  this  Western  World.  Of  the  noble  band  who  signed  a  con- 
stitution of  government1,  in  the  cabin  of  the  May  Flower,  at  Cape  Cod,  Isaac 
Allerton  was  the  fifth  to  append  his  name  to  that  instrument.  He  survived  the 
terrors  of  the  first  winter  in  New  England,2  afterward  became  the  agent  of  the 
settlers  in  negotiating  the  purchase  of  the  new  possessions  from  those  of  the 
company  in  London,  who  had  furnished  capital  for  the  enterprise;3  and,  as  an 
enterprising  trader,  became  the  founder  of  the  commerce  of  New  England.  He 
established  a  trading  post  near  the  mouth  of  the  Kennebeck,  in  1627,  and  made 
several  business  voyages  to  England.  He  also  established 'trading  posts  at 
Penobscot  and  Machias.  In  1635,  he  opened  a  profitable  trade  with  New  Haven, 
New  Amsterdam,  Virginia,  and  even  with  the  West  Indies.  He  finally  made 
New  Amsterdam  (now  New  York)  his  chief  place  of  residence,  and  traded  prin- 
cipally in  tobacco.  In  1643,  when  the  English  began  to  exert  a  considerable 
influence  in  the  affairs  of  New  Amsterdam,  and  a  council  of  eight  men  repre- 
sented the  people,  Mr.  Allerton  was  chosen  to  fill  a  seat  in  that  body. 

1.  The  first  written  constitution  adopted  by  a  free  people. 

2.  Of  the  one  hundred  PILGRIMS  only  forty  survived. 

3.  Some  London  merchants  formed  a  partnership  with  the  PILGRIMS,  and  furnished  capital  for  the 
enterprise.    The  service  of  each  emigrant  was  valued  as  a  capital  of  ten  pounds,  and  allvprofits  were 
reserved  until  the  end  of  seven  years.    The  community  system  did  not  work  well,  and  at  the  eiid  of  the 
seven  years,  the  settlers  bought' of  the  merchants  their  interest  in  the  venture. 


CANONIC  US.  15 


Mr.  Allerton  was  accompanied  in  the  May  Flower  by  his  wife  and  four  chil- 
dren. His  wife  died  soon  after  their  arrival;  and  in  1627,  he  married  Fear,  a 
daughter  of  Elder  Brewster,  the  spiritual  guide  of  the-  PILGRIM  adventurers.1 
She,  also,  died  in  1634.  He  was  again  marrried,  for  we  have  an  account  of 
his  shipwreck,  with  his  wife,  on  the  coast  of  Massachusetts,  in  1644.  The  time 
and  place  of  his  death  is  not  known,  some  asserting  that  he  returned  to  England,  • 
and  others  that  he  died  in  the  city  of  New  Amsterdam  (New  York),  in  1 659. 


0 


CANONICIJS. 

NB  of  the  most  renowned  sachems  among  the  New  England  tribes  was 
Canonicus,  the  head  of  the  Narragansets  when  the  PILGRIM  FATHERS  found- 
ed New  Plymouth.  He  regarded  the  advent  of  the  white  men  with  a  jealous 
fear;  and  in  162'2,  feeling  strong,  with  about  five  thousand  fighting  men  around 
him,  he  sent  a  challenge  to  Governor  Bradford,  of  the  Plymouth  colony,  not- 
withstanding Massasoit,  the  chief  sachem  of  the  Wampanoags,  was  the  friend 
of  the  English.  His  token  of  defiance  was  a  bundle  of  arrows,  tied  with  a 
snake  skin.  Bradford  sagaciously  filled  the  skin  with  powder  and  ball,  and 
sent  it  back  to  Canonicus.  The  chief  had  never  seen  the  like  before,  and  he 
regarded  these  substances  with  superstitious  awe.  They  were  sent  from  village 
to  village,  and  excited  so  much  alarm,  that  the  sachem  sued  for  peace,  and  made 
a  treaty  of  friendship,  which  he  never  violated ;  notwithstanding,  he  often  re- 
ceived provocations  that  would  have  justified  him  in  scattering  all  compacts  to 
the  winds. 

When  Roger  Williams  became  an  exile  from  Massachusetts,  he  found  a  friend 
in  Canonicus,  who  gave  him  all  the  land  in  the  vicinity  of  Providence,  for  a  set- 
tlement. Williams  found  more  love  and  generous  sentiment  in  the  heart  of  that 
forest  monarch  than  among  his  own  countrymen  at  Boston.  When  the  Pequot 
war  broke  out  in  1637,  Canonjcus  stood  firmly  in  defence  of  the  English;  and 
a  deputation  from  Massachusetts,  who  appeared  before  his  island  throne  opposite 
Newport,  were  received  with  friendly  assurances.  His  palace  was  a  building 
fifty  feet  in  length,  made  of  upright  poles,  covered  with  branches  and  mats. 
The  royal  dinner  given  to  the  ambassadors  consisted  of  boiled  chestnuts  for 
bread,  plenty  of  venison,  and  a  dessert  of  boiled  pudding  made  of  pounded  In- 
dian corn,  well  filled  with  whortle-berries.  After  again  assuring  the  ambassadors 
of  his  friendly  intentions,  he  advised  the  Pequots  to  bury  the  hatchet.  They 
refused  to  listen,  and  were  utterly  destroyed  by  the  combined  forces  of  the  Eng- 
lish, the  Narragansets,  the  Mohegans,  and  the  Niantics. 

In  1638,  Canonicus  began  to  feel  the  infirmities  of  age,  and  resigned  his  gov- 
ernment into  the  hands  of  his  nephew,  Miantonomoh.  That  chief  was  afterward 
made  a  prisoner  by  Uncas,  "the  last  of  the  Mohegans,"  and  murdered  by  the 
consent  of  the  English.  The  resentment  of  Canonicus  was  aroused,  and  he  could 
hardly  be-  restrained  from  declaring  war  against  the  white  people.  Prudent 
counsels  prevailed  in  his  cabinet,  and  peace  was  maintained.  In  the  beautiful 
month  of  June,  1647,  this  "wise  and  peaceable  prince,"  as  Williams  calls  him, 
died  at  his  seat  on  Conannicut  Island,  opposite  Newport,  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
five  years. 

1.  The  practice  of  the  Puritans  of  giving  their  children  the  names  of  moral  qualities,  was  exemplified 
in  Brewster's  family.  His  two  daughters  were  named  respectively  Fear  and  Lave  ;  and  his  son's  name 
was  Wrestling. 


16 


POCAHONTAS. 


POCAHONTAS. 

"  She  was  a  soft  landscape  of  mild  earth, 
Where  all  was  harmony  and  calm  quiet, 
Luxuriant,  budding."  BYRON. 

SUCH  was  the  sweet  little  Indian  girl,  the  favorite  daughter  of  the  powerful 
Emperor  of  the  Powhatan  Confederacy1  in  Virginia,  when  the  white  people 
laid  the  foundations  of  a  new  empire  there.  When  a  site  for  a  settlement  was 
chosen,  Captain  Smith,  the  boldest  of  those  early  adventurers,  penetrated  the 
interior,  and  was  taken  prisoner.  His  captor  carried  him  in  triumph  from  vil- 
lage to  village,  and  then  presented  him  to  the  Emperor,  in  his  forest  palace  at 
Werowocomoco.  Smith  was  condemned  to  die.  With  his  arms  pinioned,  and 
his  head  upon  a  huge  stone,  he  was  doomed  to  have  his  brains  dashed  out  by  a 
blow  from  a  club.  When  the  executioner  advanced,  Pocahontas,  then  a  girl 
ten  or  twelve  years  of  age,  leaped  from  her  father's  side,  where  she  sat  trem- 
bling, clasped  the  head  of  Smith  in  her  arms,  and  implored  his  life. 

'  How  could  that  stern  old  king  deny 

The  angel  pleading  in  her  eye?  « 

How  mock  the  sweet,  imploring  grace, 
That  breathed  in  beauty  from  her  face, 
And  to  her  kneeling  action  gRve 


Aim  10  ner  Kneeling  action  gave 
A  power  to  soothe,  and  still  subdue, 

Until,  though  humble  as  a  slave, 
To  more  than  queenly  sway  she  grew?" 


?"— SIMMS. 


The  Emperor  yielded,  and  Smith  was  spared. 


1.  This  was  a  confederacy  of  more  than  twenty  Indian  tribes  in  the  vicinity  of  the  James,  York  and 
Potomac  rivers.  Powhatan  was  not  the  family  name  of  the  father  of  Pocahontas,  but  the  title  of  the 
emperor,  the  same  as  the  title  of  Pharaoh,  for  the  Egyptian  kings,  in  the  time  of  the  Jewish  bondage. 


JOHN"  ELIOT.  17 


Two  years  after  this  event,  the  Indians  formed  a  conspiracy  to  exterminate 
the  white  people.  Again  Pocahontas  became  an  angel  of  deliverance.  •  During 
a  dark  and  stormy  night  she  left  her  father's  cabin,  sped  to  Jamestown,  informed 
Smith  of  his  danger,  and  was  back  to  her  couch  before  dawn.  It  was  no 'won- 
der that  the  English  regarded  the  Indian  princess  with  great  esteem ;  and  "yet, 
when  Smith  had  left  the  colony,  and  indolence  and  licentiousness  had  full  sway, 
that  gentle  girl  was  ruthlessly  torn  from  her  kindred,  and  held  a  prisoner  on 
board  of  an  English  vessel.  Argall,  a  rough,  half-piratical  mariner,  desirous  of 
extorting  advantageous  terms  of  peace  from  her  father,  bribed  a  savage,  .by  the 
gift^f  a  copper  kettle,  to  betray  her  into  his  hands.  Powhatan  loved  his  child' 
tenderly,  and  offered  five  hundred  bushels  of  corn,  and  a  promise  of  friendship 
toward  the  English,  for  her  ransom.  But  other  bonds,  more  holy  than  those  of 
Argall,  now  detained  her.  While  on  the  ship,  a  mutual  attachment  had  budded 
and  blossomed  between  her  and  John  Rolfe,  a  fine  young  Englishman,  of  good 
family.  "With  the  consent  of  her  father,  Pocahontas  received  Christian  baptism, 
with  the  title  of  "the  Lady  Rebecca,"  and  she  and  her  lover  were  married. 

In  1616,  Pocahontas  accompanied  her  husband  to  England,  where  she  was 
received  at  Court  with  all  the  distinction  due  to  a  princess.  But  the  silly 
bigot  on  the  throne  was  highly  indignant  because  one  of  his  subjects  had  dared  to 
marry  a  lady  of  royal  blood,  and  absurdly  apprehended  that  Rolfe  might  lay 
claim  "to  the  crown  of  Virginia!"  Afraid  of  the  royal  displeasure,  Captain 
Smith,  who  was  then  in  England,  would  not  allow  her  to  call  him  father,  as  she 
desired  to  do.  She  could  not  comprehend  the  cause ;  and  her  tender,  simple 
heart  was  greatly  grieved  by  what  seemed  to  be  his  want  of  affection  for  her. 
She  remained  in  England  about  a  year ;  and  when  ready  to  embark  for  America 
with  her  husband,  she  was  taken  sick,  and  died  at  Gravesend,  in  the  flowery 
month  of  June,  1617,  when  not  quite  twenty-two  years  of  age.  She  left  one 
son,  Thomas  Rolfe,  who  afterward  became  quite  a  distinguished  man  in  Vir- 
ginia. His  only  child  was  a  daughter,  and  from  her  some  of  the  leading  fam- 
ilies in  Virginia  trace  their  descent.  Among  these  were  the  Boilings,  Hem- 
mings,  Murrays,  Guys,  Eldridges  and  Randolphs.  The  late  John  Randolph,  of 
Roanoke,  boasted  of  his  descent  from  the  Indian  princess. 


JOHN    ELIOT. 

p  RE  AT  efforts  have  been  made  from  time  to  time  to  Christianize  portions  of 
VJ  the  aboriginals  of  our  country,  but  none  have  been  more  successful  than 
those  put  forth  during  the  early  days  of  New  England  settlements,  by  one  who 
has  been  justly  termed  the  Apostle  to  the  Indians.  John  Eliot  was  born  in 
Essex  county,  England,  in  1604.  He  was  educated  at  tl\e  university  of  Cam- 
bridge, and  was  engaged  in  school  teaching  for  several  years.  He  became  a 
gospel  minister;  and  in  1631,  arrived  at  Boston,  and  commenced  ministerial 
labors  there.  He  was  afterward  associated  with  Mr.  Wilde  at  the  head  of  a 
congregation  in  Roxbury ;  and  these,  with  Richard  Mather,  were  appointed,  in 
1639,  to  make  a  new  metrical  version  of  the  Psalms. 

Looking  out  upon  the  dusky  tribes  around  him,  the  heart  of  Mr.  Eliot  was 
troubled  by  a  view  of  their  spiritual  destitution,  and_  he  resolved  to  preach  the 
gospel  among  those  heathen  neighbors.  The  twenty  tribes  known  to  the  Eng- 
lish spoke  a  similar  language,  and  when  he  had  mastered  it  sufficient  to  be  un- 
derstood by  them,  he  began  his  labors.  His  first  sermon  was  preached  to  them 


18  ROGER  WILLIAMS. 


in  the  present  town  of  Newton,  in  October,  1646.  He  saw  blossoms  of  promise 
at  that  first  gathering,  and  very  soon  fruit  appeared,  to  his  great  joy.  Although 
violently  opposed  by  the  Indian  priests,  whose  "craft  was  in  danger,"  and  also 
by  some  of  the  sachems  and  chiefs,  he  was  not  dismayed,  but  penetrated  the 
deep  wilderness  in  all  directions,  relying  solely  upon  his  God  for  protection. 
Finally,  an  Indian  town  was  built  at  Natick,  and  a  house  of  worship,  the  first 
for  the  use  of  the  Indians  ever  erected  by  Protestants  in  America/  was  reared 
there  in  1660.  Many  received  the  rites  of  baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper,  after 
being  thoroughly  instructed  in  religious  doctrines  and  duties. 

Mr.  Eliot  translated  the  New  Testament  into  the  Indian  language,  and  pub- 
lished it,in  1661;  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  he  established  several  con- 
gregations among  these  children  of  the  forest,  extending  even  as  far  as  Cape 
Cod.  He  obtained  unbounded  influence  over  them ;  and  he  was  also  their  pro- 
tector when,  during  King  Philip's  war,  the  Massachusetts  people  wished  to 
exterminate  the  Indians,  without  discrimination.  It  was  estimated  that  there 
were  five  thousand  "praying  Indians,"  as  the  converts  were  called,  among  the 
New  England  tribes,  when  Philip  raised  the  hatchet. 

"When  the  weight  of  fourscore  years  bowed  the  pious  apostle,  and  he  could 
no  longer  visit  the  Indian  churches,  he  persuaded  a  number  of  families  to  send 
their  negro  servants  to  him  to  be  instructed  in  Gospel  truth,  and  thus  he  labored 
for  benighted  minds,  until  the  last.  With  the  triumphant  words,  "  welcome  joy," 
upon  his  lips,  the  venerable  and  faithful  servant  died,  on  the  20th  of  May,  1690, 
at  the  age  of  eighty -six  years. 


ROGERWILLIAMS. 

THE  annunciation  of  new  theories,  whether  in  science,  government,  religion, 
or  ethics,  which  clash  with  prevailing  dogmas,  is  always  met  with  scoffs 
and  frowns,  if  not  with  actual  persecution.  The  stand-point  of  reformers  is 
always  in  advance  of  current  ideas,  and  the  true  value  of  such  men  can  only  be 
appreciated  when  their  labors  have  ceased,  and  they  are  sleeping  with  the  dead. 
To  such  a  character  we  turn  when  we  contemplate  Roger  Williams,  the  great 
champion  of  toleration,  and  of  private  judgment  in  religious  matters.  He  was 
born  in  Wales,  in  1599,  and  was  educated  at  Oxford.  He  was  a  minister  in  the 
Church  of  England  for  a  short  time,  but  his  independent  principles  soon  led  him 
to  non-conformity,  and  he  came  to  America  to  indulge  in  the  free  exercise  of 
his  opinions.  He  arrived  in  February,  1631,  and  in  April  following,  he  was 
chosen  assistant  minister  at  Salem.  His  extreme  views  concerning  entire  sep- 
aration from  the  Church  .of  England  were  not  palatable  to  many  of  his  brethren : 
and  his  asserted  independence  of  the  magistracy  in  religious  matters  drew  upon 
him  the  condemnation  of  that  entire  class  and  their  friends.  He  left  Salem  and 
went  to  Plymouth  in  1632 ;  but,  on  the  death  of  the  minister  at  the  former 
place,  he  returned  there,  and  took  sole  charge  of  the  congregation,  in  1634. 
There  he  proclaimed  his  peculiar  views  with  more  vehemence  than  ever ;  and 
in  his  excessive  zeal  for  toleration,  and  individual  liberty  of  thought  and  action, 
he  became  as  intolerant  as  his  opposers,  without  their  excuse  of  care  for  the 
stability, of  the  church  and  civil  government.  He  asserted  that  an  oath  ought 
not  to  be  administered  to  an  unregenerate  man ;  that  a  Christian  ought  not  to 

1.  French  Jesuits  had  already  established  missionary  stations  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  even  on  the 
borders  of  the  great  lakes. 


ROGER  WILLIAMS. 


19 


pray  with  an  unregenerate  man;  that  "grace"  at  table  ought  to  be  omitted; 
and  having  formed  a  separate  congregation,  he  even  refused  to  commune  with 
members  of  his  own  church  who  did  not  separate  entirely  from  all  connection 
with  the  "polluted  New  England  churches."  He  finally  declared  the  Massa- 
chusetts charter  void,  because  the  land  had  not  been  purchased  from  the  Indians, 
and  "reviled  magistrates."  "The  general  court  passed  a  sentence  of  banishment 
against  him  in  1635,  and  early  in  January,  1636,  he  left  the  colony  for  the  wil- 
derness toward  Narraganset  Bay,  to  avoid  being  seized  and  sent  to  England. 
After  severe  trials  and  hardships,  he  purchased  lands  frOm  the  Indians  at  the 
head  of  Narraganset  Bay,  and  there  founded  a  town,  and  named  it  Providence. 
He  offered  a  free  asylum  to  all  persecuted  people,  and  many  joined  him  there. 
Time  mellowed  his  extreme  opinions,  and  he  became  a  pattern  of  toleration. 
He  also  became  a  Baptist ;  and  when  he  formed  a  civil  government,  it  was 
purely  democratic.  He,  as  the  head,  had  no  privileges  but  those  which  were 
common  to  all.  He  labored  zealously  for  the  spiritual  and  temporal  good  of  the 
Indians;  and  in  1643  he  went  to  England  to  obtain  a  royal  charter.  Already 
other  settlements  of  his  friends  had  been  made  on  Ehode  Island.1  In  the  spring 
of  1644,  a  free  charter  of  incorporation  was  granted,  and  these  several  settle- 
ments were  united  under  the  title  of  the  Rhode  Island  and.  Providence  Planta- 

1.  The  Indian  name  was  Aquiday,  or  Aquitneclc.    It  was  named  Rhode  Island  because  of  its  supposed 
resemblance  to  the  aucieut  Island  of  Rhodes. 


20  MIANTONOMOH. 


tions.  He  again  went  to  England  in  1651,  as  agent  for  the  colony,  where  he 
remained  until  1654.  On  his  return  he  was  made  president  of  the  colony,  in 
which  office  he  was  succeeded,  in  1657,  by  Benedict  Arnold. 

Eoger  "Williams  was  an  eminent  peace-maker  between  the  white  people  and 
the  Indians,  and  on  two  occasions  he  no  doubt  saved  those  who  banished  him 
to  the  wilderness,  from  utter  destruction.  While  all  sects  were  permitted  to 
enjoy  entire  freedom  within  his  domains,  he  was  fierce  in  controversy  against 
the  Quakers.  In  1672,  he  held  a  public  dispute  with  leaders  of  that  sect  at  New- 
port, for  three  days,  and  one  day  at  Providence,  an  account  of  which  he  after- 
ward published,  under  the  title  of  "  George  Fox  digged  out  of  his  Burrows."  A 
preacher,  named  Burroughs,  was  one  of  the  disputants  in  favor  of  the  principles 
of  Fox. 

Roger  "Williams  died  at  Providence,  in  April,  1683,  aged  eighty-four  years. 
His  name  is  cherished  as  the  first  founder  of  a  state  in  the  New  World,  where 
freedom  to  worship  God  according  to  the  dictates  of  the  individual  conscience, 
was  made  an  organic  law. 


MIANTONOMOH. 

ONE  of  the  most  renowned  of  the  warriors  of  the  New  England  Indians,  was 
Miantonomoh,  sachem  of  the  Narragansets,  and  nephew  and  successor  of 
Canonicus.  He  took  a  share  in  the  government  of  his  aged  uncle,  in  1636,  and 
was  the  warm  friend  and  benefactor  of  the  first  settlers  of  Rhode  Island.  He 
joined  Captain  Mason  against  the  Pequods  in  1637  ;  and  the  following  year  he 
was  associated  with  Uncas,  the  chief  sachem  of  the  Mohegans,  in  a  treaty  of 
peace  and  friendship  with  the  English  at  Hartford  The  two  sachems  agreed 
not  to  make  war  upon  each  other,  without  first  appealing  to  the  English.  An 
occasion  soon  appeared.  Uncas  was  the  aggressor;  and  by  the  consent  of  the 
governor  at  Hartford,  Miantonomoh,  at  the  head  of  eight .  hundred  warriors, 
marched  into  the  Mohegan  country.  A  severe  battle  ensued  on  a  great  plain 
near  Norwich.  By  stratagem  Uncas  gained  the  victory,  and  Miantonomoh  was 
made  a  prisoner,  with  one  of  his  brothers,  and  two  sons  of  Canonicus.  They 
were  sent  to  Hartford,  and  the  English  were  asked  to  decide  what  should  be 
done  with  the  royal  prisoner.  The  question  was  referred  to  an  ecclesiastical 
tribunal,  consisting  of  five  of  the  principal  ministers  of  New  England.  They 
decided  to  hand  him  over  to  Uncas  for  "  execution 'without  torture,"  within  the 
dominions  of  that  sachem.  It  was  an  ungenerous  and  wicked  decision,  for 
Miantonomoh  had  ever  been  a  firm  friend  of  the  English,  without  the  selfish 
incentives  that  governed  Uncas.  But  just  then,  a  covetous  desire  to  possess 
the  land  of  Uncas  made  them  willing  to  secure  his  favor,  even  by  so  foul  a  pro- 
cedure. Delighted  with  the  verdict  of  his  Christian  allies,  the  equally  savage 
Mohegan,  with  a  few  trusty  followers,  conducted  Miantonomoh  to  the  spot  where 
he  was  captured,  near  Norwich,  and  there  a  brother  of  Uncas  stepped  up  behind 
the  unsuspecting  victim  and  cleft  his  head  with  a  hatchet.  The  noble  Mian- 
tonomoh was  buried  where  he  was  slain ;  and  to  this  day  the  locality  is  called 
Sachem's  Plain.  This  transaction  aroused  the  fierce  ire  of  the  Narragansets 
against  the  English,  and  they  had  the  sympathy  of  the  surrounding  tribes. 
Hatred  of  the  English  and  of  their  boasted  Christianity,  became  deep-rooted, 
and  was  one  of  the  principal  causes  which  led  to  the  bloody  contest  known  as 
King  Philip's  war,  about  thirty  years  later.  Miantonomoh  was  about  forty-four 
years  of  age  at  the  time  of  his  death. 


WILLIAM   PHIPPS.  21 


WILLIAM    PHIPPS, 

"  /CIRCUMSTANCES  make  men  what  they  are,"  is  a  general  truth  which 
V  few  persons  of  observation  will  deny.  William  Phipps  illustrated  the 
truth  in  his  life  and  character,  in  an  eminent  degree.  He  was  born  in  the  then 
far-off  wilderness  at  Pemaquid,  now  Bristol,  in  the  state  of  Maine,  on  the  2d  of 
February,  1651.  His  father  was  a  gun-smith,  and  migrated  to  America,  with 
Winthrop's  party,  in  1630.  William  was  the  tenth  of  twenty-six  children  by 
the  same  mother.  He  lived  in  the  wilderness  until  he  was  eighteen  years 
of  age,  without  any  special  aim  for  life.  Then  he  was  apprenticed  to  a  ship 
carpenter  for  four  years.  At  the  expiration  of  his  minority  and  servitude  ho 
went  to  Boston,  and  there,  for  the  first  time,  studied  reading  and  writing. 
Charmed  with  the  tales  of  seamen,  among  whom  his  business  cast  his  lot,  he 
resolved  to  seek  his  fortunes  on  the  ocean.  He  left  Boston  when  he  was  twenty- 
four  years  of  age,  and  after  many  adventures  and  hardships,  he  discovered  a 
Spanish  wreck  on  the  coast  of  St.  Domingo,  and  from  it  fished  up  pearls,  plate, 
and  jewels,  to  the  value  of  a  million  and  a  half  of  dollars.  With  this  treasure 
he  sailed  for  England,  where  he  divided  the  booty  so  equitably  among  the  sea- 
men, that  his  own  share  amounted  to  only  eighty  thousand  dollars.  That  was 
a  large  fortune  for  the  time ;  and  James  the  Second  was  so  much  charmed  by 
the  talent  and  general  character  of  Phipps,  that  he  knighted  him.  Three  years 
afterward  he  returned  to  Boston,  where  he  took  rank  in  the  best  society. 

In  1690,  Sir  William  Phipps  commanded  an  expedition  against  Port  Royal, 
in  the  French  territory  of  Acadie,  now  Nova  Scotia.  His  expedition  comprised 
eight  or  nine  vessels,  and  about  eight  hundred  men.  He  seized  Port  Royal, 
brought  Acadie  into  subjection,  and  obtained  sufficient  property,  by  plundering 
the  people,  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  enterprise.  This  success  encouraged  the 
New  England  colonies  to  coalesce  with  New  York  in  efforts  to  subdue  Canada, 
then  held  by  the  French.  Sir  William  commanded  a  naval  expedition  against 
Quebec,  which  Massachusetts  alone  fitted  out.  He  sailed  from  Boston  with 
thirty-four  vessels  and  a  thousand  men,  reached  Quebec  in  safety,  and  landed 
his  troops ;  but  the  strength  of  the  city,  and  the  lack  of  cooperation  on  the  part 
of  the  land  troops,  caused  him  to  abandon  the  undertaking  and  return  home. 
He  was  soon  afterward  sent  to  England  to  solicit  aid  in  further  warfare  against 
the  French  and  Indians.  He  also  asked  for  the  restoration  of  the  old  charter  of 
Massachusetts,  taken  away  by  Andros.1  Aid  for  war  was  refused;  and  King 
William,  instead  of  restoring  the  old  charter,  granted  a  new  one,  under  which 
Sir  William  was  appointed  the  first  governor,  by  the  king,  on  the  nomination 
of  Increase  Mather.  He  arrived  at  Boston  in  May,  1692,  and  was  instrumental 
in  stopping  prosecutions  for  witchcraft,  then  in  fearful  activity  in  the  colony.2 
The  same  year  he  went  to  Pemaquid,  with  four  hundred  and  fifty  men,  and 
built  a  fort  there.  He  was  removed  from  office  in  1694,  when  he  went  to  Eng- 
land, and  received  positive  promises  of  restoration.  But  death  soon  closed  his 
career.  He  died  in  London,  on  the  18th  of  February,  1695,  at  the  age  of  forty- 
four  years. 

1.  Ednvml  Andros  was  sent  to  New  England,  by  James  the  Second,  to  tal\e  away  the  several  charters 
of  the  colonies,  and  consolidate  the  whole  under  one  government,  with  himself  at  the  head  as  the  direct 
representative  of  royalty.     The  revolution  of  16S8,  drove  James  from  the  throne,  and  placed  William  of 
Orange  and  his  wife,  Mary,  there.     It  was  to  William  that  Phipps  appealed  for  the  restoration  of  the 
charters  taken  away  by  Andros.    The  new  charter  was  uot  so  acceptable  to  the  people  as  the  old  one. 

2.  See  sketch  of  Dr  Mather. 


22 


PETER   STUYYESANT. 


PETER    STUYVESANT. 

THE  founding  of  the  great  commercial  city  of  New  York  was  the  work  of 
beaver-hunting  Hollanders,  at  a  time  when  ships  from  the  Zuyder-Zee  were 
in  the  far^distant  waters  of  the  East  Indies,  and  the  navies  that  sailed  from  the 
Texel  were  mistresses  of  the  ocean.  Holland  then  controlled  the  commerce  of 
the  world.  A  company  was  chartered  to  plant  trading  stations  in  the  region 
discovered  by  Henry  Hudson,1  and  when  settlements  were  established  there, 
governors  were  sent  to  administer  political  rule.  Of  the  five  employed  at  dif- 
ferent times  by  the  company,  Peter  Stuyvesant  was  the  ablest  and  the  last.  He 
was  a  son  of  a  clergyman  in  Friesland,  where  he  was  born  in  1602,  and  was  edu- 
cated for  the  ministry  in  the  High  School  at  Franeker.  There  he  acquired  a 
knowledge  of  Latin,  with  which  he  played  the  pedant  in  after  life.  Liking  the 
military  art  better  than  theology,  he  entered  the  army,  and  rose  to  distinction 


1.  Hudson  discovered  the  Bay  of  New  York  and  the  river  bearing  his  name,  at  the  close  of  the  Sum- 
mer of  1609.    He  was  then  in  the  service  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Company. 


EDWARD   WINSLOW.  23 

on  account  of  his  bravery.  His  talent  commended  him  to  the  Dutch  "West  India 
Company,1  and  he  was  appointed  its  first  director,  or  governor,  of  Curacoa. 

In  1644,  Stuyvesant  led  an  expedition  against  the  Portuguese  on  the  island 
of  St.  Martin,  and  lost  a  leg  in  an  engagement  there.  He  went  to  Holland  for 
surgical  aid,  and  soon  afterward  he  received  the  appointment  of  first  director  of 
the  province  of  New  Netherland,  as  the  Dutch  possessions  on  the  Hudson  were 
called.  He  arrived  at  New  Amsterdam  (now  New  York)  in  May,  1647.  He 
found  everything  in  confusion,  and  the  seeds  of  democracy  growing  rapidly,  be- 
cause of  the  tyrannous  and  dishonest  rule  of  his  predecessor.  Stuyvesant  was 
an  aristocrat,  and  his  profession  made  him  an  iron  man,  as  a  ruler.  He  at  once 
commenced  much-needed  reforms,  and  declared  his  honest  desire  to  improve  the 
condition  of  the  people;  but  he  told  them  frankly  that  he  considered  it  "treason 
to  petition  against  one's  magistrates,  whether  there  be  cause  or  not."  Governed 
by  such  sentiments,  he  ruled  vigorously  for  almost  twenty  years.  He  destroyed 
the  power  of  a  growing  Swedish  colony  on  the  Delaware,2  settled  boundary  dis- 
putes with  the  English  in  Connecticut,  and  by  conciliatory  measures  made  the 
Indians  so  friendly,  that  the  New  England  people  believed  the  silly  story  that 
he  was  leagued  with  the  savages  to  destroy  the  Puritans. 

When  Charles  the  Second  was  restored  to  the  throne  of  his  fathers,  he  gave 
the  territory  of  New  Netherland  to  his  brother  James,  Duke  of  York.  The 
duke  sent  a  fleet  to  take  possession.3  Stuyvesant  yielded  with  great  reluctance; 
and  in  September,  1664,  New  Amsterdam  was  surrendered  to  the  English,  and 
was  named  New  York.  Stuyvesant  retired  to  his  bouerie  or  farm,  near  the 
East  River,  where  he  lived  in  dignity  and  quiet  until  August,  1682,  when  he 
died.  His  wife  was  Ruth  Bayard,  a  Huguenot.  Their  remains  lie  in  a  vault 
under  St.  Mark's  Church,  in  the  city  of  New  York. 


EDWARD     WINSLOW. 

ONE  of  the  most  accomplished  men  who  came  to  America  in  the  May  Flower, 
was  Edward  Winslow,  a  native  of  Worcestershire,  England,  where  he  was 
born  on  the  19th  of  October,  1595.  Whilst  travelling  in  Europe,  he  became 
acquainted,  at  Leyden,  with  the  Rev.  John  Robinson,  the  pastor  of  the  Pilgrims 
there.  He  joined  that  church  in  1617,  married  a  young  lady  there,  and  made 
Leyden  his  place  of  residence  until  his  departure  for  America.  He  was  one  of 
the  companions  of  Miles  Standish  in  the  search  for  a  landing-place  for  the  May 
Flower  passengers ;  and  being  a  young  man  of  great  energy,  he  became  one  of 
the  most  useful  men  in  the  colony.  Massasoit  became  much  attached  to  him  ; 
and  in  1623,  hearing  of  the  severe  illness  of  that  sachem,  Winslow  visited  him, 
and  by  the  skilful  use  of  some  medicines,  restored  him  to  health,  and  won  his 
unbounded  gratitude.  On  that  occasion,  as  on  many  others,  the  brave  young 
Hobbomac,  one  of  Massasoit's  warriors,  who  lived  with  the  white  people,  was 
guide  and  interpreter.  In  the  following  Autumn,  Mr.  Winslow  went  to  England 
as  an  agent  for  the  colony ;  and  the  next  Spring  he  returned,  and  introduced 

1.  This  company  was  formed  after  the  discoveries  of  Hudson,  and  was  invested  with  almost  vice-regal 
powers  for  carrying  on  trade  and  making  settlements  in  America  and  on  the  coast  of  Afiica. 

2.  Peter  Minuit,  an  offended  director  of  the  Dutch  West  India  Company,  went  to  Sweden  and  proposed 
to  lead  a  colony  of  Swedes  to  the  New  World.     A  Swedish  Went  India  Company  was  formed  ;  and  in  the 
Spring  of  16.38,  Minuit  and  a  considerable  number  of  settlers  located  upon  the  Delaware,  on  the  site  of 
the  present  New  Castle.     They  called  the  country  New  Sweden,  and  proposed  to  establish  a  provincial 
government,  but  the  more  powerful  Dutch  overthrew  all  their  plans,  and  the  colonists  became  subjects 
to  Stuyvesant. 

3.  England  claimed  all  America  from  Newfoundland  to  Florida,  by  virtue  of  early  coast  explorations. 


24  WILLIAM  PENN. 


the  first  cattle  into  New  England.1  He  made  voyages  to  England  and  other 
places  for  the  benefit  of  the  Plymouth  colony,  and  for  private  commercial  pur- 
suits; and,  in  1633,  was  elected  governor.  Twice,  subsequently,  he  was  elected 
chief  magistrate  of  the  colony,  when  Bradford  declined  serving,  and  always  per- 
formed his  duties  with  great  satisfaction  to  his  constituents.  He  made  many 
coast  voyages,  even  as  far  south  as  Manhattan,  for  trading  purposes ;  and  in 
1635,  went  to  England  again,  when,  on  a  charge  of  performing  illegal  clerical 
services  at  Plymouth,  made  by  the  mendacious  Thomas  Morton,  he  was  impris- 
oned four  months.  There,  and  during  a  subsequent  visit  to  his  native  country, 
he  was  active  in  founding  a  society  for  propagating  the  gospel  in  New  England, 
which  was  incorporated  in  1649.  He  was  so  highly  esteemed  in  his  native 
country,  that  public  employments  were  thrust  upon  him,  and  he  never  returned 
to  America.  He  was  appointed  a  commissioner  to  determine  the  amount  of  the 
restitution  to  be  made  to  England,  by  Denmark,  for  marine  spoliations ;  and  in 
1655,  Cromwell  appointed  him  the  first  of  three  commissioners  to  superintend 
an  expedition  against  the  Spaniards,  in  the  West  Indies,  in  which  admiral  Penn, 
father  of  William,  was  a  conspicuous  actor.  Governor  Winslow  accompanied 
the  expedition.  It  failed  to  accomplish  its  object ;  and  while  the  fleet  was 
passing  between  the  islands  of  St.  Domingo  and  Jamaica,  he  died  of  a  fever,  on 
the  8th  of  May,  1655,  at  the  age  of  sixty  years.  Mr.  Winslow's  wife  was  among 
those  of  the  May  Flower,  who  died  during  the  Winter  and  Spring  of  1621. 
William  White  also  died  at  about  the  same  time,  and  within  two  months  after- 
ward Winslow  and  White's  widow  were  married.  This  was  the  first  marriage 
of  Europeans  in  New  England.  Mrs.  Winslow  was  not  only  the  first  bride, 
but  the  mother  of  the  first  white  child  born  in  New  England,  her  son,  Peregrine 
White,  having  been  born  on  board  the  May  Flower  while  that  vessel  lay  an- 
chored in  Cape  Cod  Bay. 


WILLIAM    PENN. 

IN  glorious  contrast  with  the  inhumanity  of  Spaniards,  Frenchmen,  and  many 
Englishmen,  stands  the  record  on  History's  tablet  of  the  kindness  and  jus- 
tice toward  the  feeble  Indian,  of  the  founder  of  Pennsylvania, 

"  Thpu'lt  find,"  said  the  Quaker,  "  in  me  and  mine, 
But  friends  and  brothers  to  thee  and  to  thine, 
Who  abuse  no  power,  and  admit  no  line 

'Twixt  the  red  man  and  the  white." 
And  bright  was  the  spot  where  the  Quaker  came 
To  leave  his  hat,  his  drab,  and  his  name, 
That  will  sweetly  sound  from  the  trump  of  Fame, 

'Till  its  final  blast  shall  die.— HANNAH  F.  GOULD. 

William  Penn  was  born  in  the  city  of  London,  on  the  14th  of  October,  1644, 
and  was  educated  at  Oxford.  His  father  was  the  eminent  admiral  Penn,  a  great 
favorite  of  royalty.  William  was  remarkable,  in  early  youth,  for  brilliant  talent 
and  unaffected  piety.  While  yet  a  student  he  heard  one  of  the  new  sect  of 
Quakers  preach,  and,  with  other  students,  became  deeply  impressed  with  the 
evangelical  truths  which  they  uttered.  He;  with  several  others,  withdrew  from 
the  Established  Church,  worshipped  by  themselves,  and  for  non-conformity  were 
expelled  from  the  college.  Penn's  father  sought,  in  vain,  to  reclaim  him ;  and 
when,  at  length,  he  refused  to  take  off  his  hat  in  the  presence  of  the  admiral,  and 

1  Horses  were  not  introduced  until  1644.  The  people  often  rode  on  bulls.  It  is  said  that  when  John 
Alden  went  to  be  married  to  Priscilla  Mnllins,  he  covered  his  bull  with  a  handsome  cloth  On  his  re- 
turn, he  seated  his  bride  on  the  animal's  back,  and  he  led  him  by  a  rope  fastened  to  a  ring  in  his  nose 


WILLIAM   PENN. 


25 


even  of  the  king,  he  was  expelled  from  the  parental  roof.  He  was  sent  to  gay 
France,  where  he  became  a  polished  gentleman  after  a  residence  of  two  years ; 
and  on  his  return  he  studied  law  in  London  until  the  appearance  of  the  great 
plague  in  1665.  He  was  sent  to  Ireland  in  1666,  to  manage  an  estate  there 
belonging  to  his  father,  but  was  soon  recalled,  because  he  associated  with  Qua- 
kers. Again  expelled  from  his  father's  house,  he  became  an  itinerant  Quaker 
preacher,  made  many  proselytes,  suffered  revilings  and  imprisonments  "for 
conscience  sake,"  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-four  years,  wrote  his  celebrated 
work,  entitled  No  Cross,  no  Grown,  while  in  prison  because  of  his  non-conformity 
to  the  Church  of  England.  He  was  released  in  1670,  and  soon  afterward  be- 
came possessor  of  the  large  estates  of  his  father,  who  died  that  year.  He  con- 
tinued to  write  and  preach  in  defence  of  his  sect,  and  went  to  Holland  and 
Germany,  for  that  purpose,  in  1677. 

In  March,  1681,  Penn  procured  from  Charles  the  Second,  a  grant  of  the  terri- 
tory in  America  which  yet  bears  his  name ;  and  two  years  afterward  he  visited 
the  colony  which  he  had  established  there.  He  founded  Philadelphia — city  of 
brotherly  love — toward  the  close  of  the  same  year ;  and  within  twenty-four 
months  afterward,  two  thousand  settlers  were  planting  their  homes  there.  Penn 
returned  to  England  in  1684,  and  through  his  influence  with  the  king,  obtained 

9 


26  THOMAS   HOOKER. 


the  release  of  thirteen  hundred  Quakers,  then  in  prison.  Because  of  his  personal 
friendship  toward  James,  the  successor  of  Charles  (who  was  driven  from  the 
throne  by  the  revolution  of  1688,  and  had  his  place  filled  by  his  daughter,  Mary, 
and  William,  Prince  of  Orange),  he  was  suspected  of  adherence  to  the  fallen 
monarch,  and  was  imprisoned,  and  deprived  of  his  proprietary  rights.  These 
were  restored  to  him  in  1694 ;  and  in  1 699,  he  again  visited  his  American  colony. 
He  remained  in  Pennsylvania  until  1701,  when  he  hastened  to  England  to  cp- 
pose  a  parliamentary  proposition  to  abolish  all  proprietary  governments  in 
America.  He  never  returned.  In  1712,  he  was  prostrated  by  a  paralytic  dis- 
order. It  terminated  his  life  on  the  30th  of  July,  1718,  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
four  years.  Penn  was  greatly  beloved  by  the  Indians ;  and  it  is  worthy  of 
remark  that  not  a  drop  of  Quaker's  blood  was  ever  shed  by  the  savages. 


THOMAS     HOOKER, 

THE  true  heroes  of  America  are  those  who,  from  time  to  time,  have  left  the 
comforts  of  civilized  life  and  planted  the  seeds  of  new  states  deep  in  the 
wilderness.  Among  the  remarkable  men  of  that  stamp  was  the  Reverend 
Thomas  Hooker,  the  first  minister  of  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  and  one  of  the 
pioneer  settlers  in  Connecticut.  He  was  born  in  Leicestershire,  England,  in 
1586,  and  was  educated  in  Emanuel  College,  Cambridge.  He  began  his  labors 
as  a  Christian  minister  at  about  the  time  of  the  death  of  James  the  First,  when 
Archbishop  Laud  began  to  harass  the  non-conformists.  In  1630,  Mr.  Hooker 
was  silenced,  because  of  his  non-conformity  to  the  Established  Church,  and  he 
founded  a  grammar  school  at  Chelmsford.  His  influence  was  great ;  and  falling 
under  the  ban  of  Laud,  he  was  obliged  to  fly  to  Holland,  where  he  became  an 
assistant  minister  to  Dr.  Ames,  both  at  Delft  and  Rotterdam.  He  came  to 
America  with  the  Reverend  Mr.  Cotton,  in  1633,  and  was  made  pastor  of  the 
church  at  Cambridge  in  the  Autumn  of  that  year. 

In  1636,  this  "light  of  the  western  churches,"  with  other  ministers,  their 
families  and  flocks,  in  all  about  one  hundred,  left  the  vicinity  of  Boston  for  the 
Connecticut  valley,  where  the  English  had  already  planted  settlements.  It  was 
a  toilsome  journey  through  the  swamps  and  forests.  They  took  quite  a  number 
of  cows  with  them.  These  browsed  upon  the  shrubs  and  grazed  in  swamp 
borders,  and  thelf  milk  afforded  subsistence  for  the  wanderers.  The  journey 
was  made  in  the  pleasant  month  of  June,  and  on  the  4th  of  July  they  reached 
the  flowery  banks  of  the  Connecticut,  and  received  the  hearty  greetings  of  wel- 
come of  the  little  band  of  settlers  who  were  seated  on  the  site  of  the  present 
city  of  Hartford.  There,  in  the  little  meeting-house  already  built,  Mr.  Hooker 
preached  when  the  Sabbath  came,  and  administered  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  to  all.  A  greater  portion  of  Mr.  Hooker's  followers  settled  at  Hartford, 
while  some  chose  Wethersfield  for  a  residence;  and  others,  from  Roxbury,went 
up  the  river  twenty  miles,  and  founded  Springfield. 

Mr.  Hooker  was  one  of  the  most  powerful  preachers  of  his  time,  and  wrote 
much  and  well,  on  religious  subjects.  "While  preaching  in  the  great  church  of 
Leicester,  before  he  left  England,  one  of  the  magistrates  of  the  town  sent  a 
fiddler  to  the  church-yard  to  disturb  the  worship.  Mr.  Hooker's  powerful  voice 
not  only  drowned  the  music,  but  it  attracted  the  fiddler  to  the  church  door.  He 
listened  to  the  great  truths  uttered,  and  became  converted.  Mr.  Hooker  was  a 
man  of  great"  benevolence,  and  in  every  sphere  of  life  he  was  eminently  useful. 
He  died  at  Hartford,  of  an  epidemic  fever,  on  the  7th  of  July,  1647,  at  the  age 
of  sixty-one  years. 


COTTON  MATHEK, 


COTTON    MATHER, 

SOME  of  the  early  New  England  divines,  as  well  as  the  magistrates,  were  ex- 
ceedingly superstitious,  while  their  piety  and  general  good  sense  could  not 
be  doubted.  Cotton  Mather,  one  of  the  earliest  of  American-born  clergymen, 
was  a  prominent  specimen  of  the  kind  of  men  alluded  to.  He  was  born  in 
Boston,  on  the  12th  of  February,  1663,  and  was  educated  at  Harvard  College, 
where  he  was  graduated  at  the  early  age  of  sixteen  years.  He  was  so  expert 
in  learning,  that  before  he  was  nineteen  years  old,  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts 
was  conferred  upon  him,  by  the  college.  At  the  age  of  twenty-two  years,  he 
was  ordained  a  gospel  minister,  and  became  the  assistant  of  his  father,  Increase 
Mather.  Preaching  and  authorship  were  the  joint  professions  of  his  life,  and  he 
excelled  all  others,  of  his  time,  in  both.  He  became  master  of  several  languages, 
and  was  considered  a  prodigy  of  learning.  He  held  a  fluent  pen,  yet  his  writ- 
ings were  not  fitted  for  immortality.  They  lacked  solidity  and  that  true  genius 
which  is  undying.  Many  of  his  productions  are  already  forgotten,  and  none  but 
his  Magnolia  will  probably  "  live  forever."  Its  extravagances  form  its  chief 
element  of  vitality.  "With  all  his  learning,  Dr.  Mather  was  a  man  of  narrow 
views,  a  conceited  heart,  and  unsound  judgment.  He  was  a  firm  believer  in 
witchcraft,  and  probably  did  more  than  any  other  man  to  promote  the  spread  of 
that  fearful  delusion,  known  in  history  as  Salem  Witchcraft1.  He  wrote  a  book 

1.  A  belief  in  wi'chcraft  was  almost  ur.iversnl,  at  that  time.    It  had  produced  terrible  trr.gedies  on  the 


28  JOHN   MASON. 


on  the  subject,  and  stimulated  the  authorities  to  prosecute  all  suspected  persons. 
Several  years  before,  his  father  had  published  an  account  of  all  the  supposed 
cases  of  witchcraft  in  New  England,  under  the  title  of  "Remarkable  Provi- 
dences," which  directed  public  attention  to  the  subject.  After  the  delusion  had 
passed  away,  Cotton  Mather's  credulity  was  exposed  by  a  man  named  Calef,  in 
a  series  of  letters.  Mather  sneered  at  him  at  first,  but  when  Calef  laid  his  blows 
on  thick  and  fast,  the  Doctor  called  him  "a  coal  from  hell,"  and  prosecuted  him 
for  slander.  The  suit  was  wisely  withdrawn. 

"With  all  his  vagaries  and  folly,  Dr.  Mather  exhibited  much  good  sense.  Dr. 
Franklin  has  thus  illustrated  the  fact,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Mather's  son,  Samuel, 
whose  house  and  fine  library  were  consumed  at  Charlestown  during  the  battle 
on  Breed's  Hill,  in  1775.  "The  last  time  I  saw  your  father  was  in  the  begin- 
ning of  1724,  when  I  visited  him  after  my  first  trip  to  Pennsylvania.  He  re- 
ceived me  in  his  library ;  and  on  my  taking  leave,  showed  me  a  shorter  way  out 
of  the  house  through  a  narrow  passage,  which  was  crossed  by  a  beam  overhead. 
"We  were  still  talking  as  I  withdrew,  he  accompanying  me  behind,  and  I  turning 
partly  towards  him,  when  he  said  hastily,  'Stoop!  stoop!'  I  did  not  under- 
stand him  until  I  felt  my  head  hit  against  the  beam.  He  was  a  man  that  never 
missed  an  occasion  of  giving  instruction,  and  upon  this  he  said  to  me,  '  You  are 
young,  and  have  the  world  before  you$  stoop  as  you  go  through  it,  and  you 
will  escape  many  hard  thumps.'  This  advice,  thus  beat  into  my  head,  has  fre- 
quently been  of  use  to  me ;  and  I  often  think  of  it  when  I  see  pride  mortified, 
and  misfortunes  brought  upon  people  by  carrying  their  heads  too  high." 

Cotton  Mather  married  three  times,  and  had  fifteen  children.  He  died  on  the 
13th  of  February,  1728,  at  the  age  of  sixty-five  years.  * 


JOHN    MASON. 

MILES  STANDISII  is  called  the  "hero  of  New  England"  because  of  priority. 
There  were  other  men  of  that  olden  time  who  were  greater  "  heroes  "  than 
he,  when  measured  by  the  common  standard.  John  Mason  was  a  greater 
"hero"  than  Standish,  for  he  caused  the  destruction  of  more  Indians  than  his 
rival  for  the  palm.  He  was  born  in  England  about  the  year  1600.  He  was  a 
soldier  by  profession,  and  had  practiced  his  murderous  art  in  that  cock-pit  of 
Europe,  the  Netherlands.  In  1630,  he  came  to  America,  and  was  one  of  the 
original  settlers  at  Dorchester.  He  went  to  the  Connecticut  Valley  in  1635, 
and  assisted  in  founding  a  settlement  at  Windsor.  The  peace  of  the  little  colony 
was  soon  disturbed  by  the  depredations  of  the  powerful  Pequods,  whose  chief 
rendezvous  was  between  the  Thames  and  Mystic  rivers.  They  believed  the 
white  people  to  be  friendly  to  their  enemies,  the  Mohegans  and  Narragansets, 
and  they  had  resolved  to  exterminate  them.  They  kidnapped  children,  stole 
cattle,  and  finally  made  murderous  attacks  upon  the  outskirts  of  the  settlement 
at  Saybrook,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Connecticut  river.  The  danger  became  im- 
minent, and  Captain  Mason  went  down  to  Saybrook,  with  some  followers,  to 
reinforce  and  command  the  garrison  of  the  little  fort  there.- 

In  the  Spring  of  1637,  the  settlers  in  the  Connecticut  Valley  declared  war 

continent  of  Europe,  nearly  two  hundred  years  before.  Within  fifty  or  sixty  years,  during  the  sixteenth 
century,  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  persons  accused  of  witchcraft,  perished  in  the  flames,  in 
Germany  alone.  The  delusion  prevailed  in  Massachusetts  for  more  than  six  months,  in  1692  ;  and  during 
that  time,  twenty  persons  suffered  death,  fifty-five  were  tortured  or  frightened  into  a  confession  of 
witchcraft,  and  over  one  hundred  were  imprisoned.  The  delusion  commenced  at  Danvers,  and  spread 
over  a  great  extent  of  country  in  the  vicinity  of  Boston. 


BENJAMIN   WEST.  29 


against  the  Pequods,  and  the  Plymouth  and  Massachusetts  people  promised  to 
assist  them.  Through  the  influence  of  Koger  "Williams,  the  Narragansets  be- 
came allies  of  the  English;  and  when,  late  in  May,  Captain  Mason,  with  eighty 
white  men  and  seventy  Mohegan  Indians,  anchored  his  pinnaces  near  Conanni- 
cut  Island,  he  was  joined  by  Miantonomoh,  the  great  chief  of  the  Narragansets, 
with  two  hundred  warriors.  With  these,  Mason  proceeded  toward  the  Pequod 
country,  and  was  joined,  on  the  way,  by  the  Niantics.  Sassacus,  a  fierce  warrior, 
was  the  chief  sachem  of  the  Pequods.  He  could  summon  two  thousand  braves 
to  the  field,  and  his  confidence  in  his  great  strength  made  him  less  vigilant  than 
a  weak  leader  would  have  been.  He  had  no  intelligence  or  suspicion  of  the 
approach  of  Mason,  from  the  East.  He  was  first  informed  of  it  by  the  seven  sur- 
vivors of  a  dreadful  massacre.  The  invaders  crept  as  stealthily  along  as  a  panther, 
and  just  at  dawn,  on  the  5th  of  June,  1637,  fell  upon  the  chief  fort  of  the  Pequods, 
on  the  Mystic  river.  Before  sunrise,  more  than  six  hundred  men,  women,  and 
children,  hdd  perished  by  weapons,  or  by  the  flames  of  their  own  burning  wig- 
wams. Only  seven  escaped  to  arouse  the  nation  to  vengeance.  The  English, 
aware  of  their  danger,  hastened  toward  Saybrook;  but  the  power  of  the  Pequods 
was  broken.  When,  a  few  days  afterward,  about  one  hundred  Massachusetts 
men  joined  Mason,  Sassacus  and  his  followers  fled  westward,  hotly  pursued  by 
the  English.  They  took  shelter  in  Sasco  swamp,  near  Fairfield,  where,  after  a 
severe  battle,  they  all  surrendered,  except  Sassacus  and  a  few  others,  who  fled 
to  the  Mohawks  for  refuge.  There  the  great  sachem  was  treacherously  slain. 
The  blow  was  terrible.  A  nation  had  disappeared  in  a  day.1  The  New  England 
tribes  were  awed ;  and  for  forty  years  afterward  the  colonists  were  unmolested 
by  them. 

Soon  after  the  war,  the  governor,  of  Connecticut  appointed  Mason  major-general 
of  all  the  forces  of  the  colony,  which  office  he  filled  until  his  death.  He  was 
also  a  civil  magistrate  for  eighteen  consecutive  years;  and  in  1660,  he  was 
elected  deputy-governor.  He  retired  from  public  life  in  1670;  and  in  1673,  he 
died  at  Norwich,  at  the  age  of  seventy -two  years. 


BENJAMIN    WEST. 

"  fFHERE  have  been  more  volumes  written  about  this  great  painter  in  Eng- 
JL  land,"  says  Lester,  "than  there  have  been  pages  devoted  to  him  in  the 
land  of  his  birth."  Here  he  grew  to  young  manhood,  and  chose  the  mother  of 
his  children ;  in  sunny  Italy  he  achieved  his  first  triumph  in  high  art,  and  in 
England  he  reigned  and  died.  His  birth  occurred  at  Springfield,  in  Chester 
county,  Pennsylvania,  on  the  10th  of  October,  1738.  He  was  the  youngest  of 
the  nine  children  of  excellent  Quaker  parents;  and  at  seven  years  of  age,  while 
keeping  flies  from  the  sleeping  baby  of  his  eldest  sister,  he  sketched  her  portrait 
so  accurately  with  black  and  red  ink,  that  his  mother,  snatching  the  paper 
(which  he  modestly  attempted  to  conceal)  from  his  hand,  exclaimed,  "I  declare 
he  has  made  a  likeness  of  little  Sally !  "  His  parents  encouraged  his  efforts, 
and  the  Indians  supplied  him  with  some  of  the  pigments  with  which  they  painted 
their  faces.  His  mother's  "indigo  bag"  furnished  him  with  blue,  and  from 
pussy's  tail  he  drew  the  material  for  his  brushes.  Such  was  the  juvenile  be- 

1.  Captain  Mason  wrote  a  Brief  Memoir  of  the  Pequod  War.  It  makes  one  shudder  to  read  his  blas- 
phemous allusion  to  the  interposition  of  God  in  favor  of  the  English,  as  if  the  poor  Indian  was  not  liii 
object  of  the  care  and  love  of  the  Deity  !  Happily  the  time  is  rapidly  passing  by  when  men  believe  that 
they  are  doing  God  service  by  slaughtering,  maiming,  or  in  the  least  injuring,  with  vengeful  feelings, 
any  of  his  creatures. 


30 


BENJAMIN   WEST. 


ginning  of  the  greatest  historical  painter  of  the  last  century — such  were  the 
first  buddings  of  the  genius  of  that  boy,  who  would  not  ride  in  company  with 
another,  because  he  aspired  to  nothing  greater  than  a  tailor's  shop-board.  "Do 
you  really  mean  to  be  a  tailor?"  asked  little  West.  "Indeed  I  do,"  replied  his 
boy-companion.  "Then  you  may  ride  alone,"  exclaimed  the  young  aspirant, 
leaping  to  the  ground.  "I  mean  to  be  a  painter,  and  be  the  companion  of 
kings  and  emperors;  I  '11  not  ride  with  one  willing  to  be  a  tailor!" 

At  the  age  of  fifteen  years,  young  West  had  learned  the  use  of  proper  colors, 
and  was  a  popular  portrait  painter.  The  pursuit  of  such  art  was  contrary  to  tho 
discipline  of  the  Quakers.  A  meeting  was  called  to  consult  upon  the  matter. 
At  length  one  arose  and  said,  "  God  hath  bestowed  on  this  youth  a  genius  for 
art ;  shall  we  question  his  wisdom  ?  I  see  the  Divine  hand  in  this ;  we  shall 
do  well  to  sanction  the  art  and  encourage  this  youth."  Then  the  sweet  women 
of  the  assembly  rose  up  and  kissed  him.  The  men,  one  by  one,  laid  their  hands 
on  his  head,  and  thus  Benjamin  West  was  solemnly  consecrated  to  the  service 
of  the  great  art.  His  pictures  produced  both  money  and  fame,  and  wealthy 
men  furnished  him  with  means  to  go  to  Italy,  to  study  the  works  of  the  great 
masters.  There  every  step  was  a  triumph,  and  he  became  the  best  painter  in 
Italy.  He  crossed  the  Alps  and  went  to  England.  There  prejudice  and  bad 
taste  met  him,  but  his  genius  overcame  both.  Among  his  earliest  and  best 


WILLIAM   BYRD.  31 


patrons  was  Archbishop  Drummond,  who  introduced  him  to  the  young  King, 
George  the  Third.  His  majesty  was  delighted,  and  ordered  him  to  paint  The 
Departure  of  Regulus,  that  noble  picture  exhibited  in  the  New  York  Crystal 
Palace,  in  1853.  That  achievement  placed  him  on  the  throne  of  English  art. 
The  King,  and  Reynolds,  and  "West,  founded  the  Royal  Academy ;  and  he  who, 
in  the  face  of  every  obstacle,  created  a  public  taste  for  high  art,  was  properly 
appointed  "Painter  to  his  Majesty."  He  designed  thirty  grand  pictures,  illus- 
trative of  The  Progress  of  Revealed  Religion,  and  completed  twenty-eight  of 
them,  besides  a  great  number  of  other  admirable  works.  But  when  insanity 
clouded  the  mind  of  King  George,  and  his  libertine  son,  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
obtained  power,  the  great  painter  was  neglected.  The  king  of  art,  who  had 
ruled  for  five  and  thirty  years,  was  soon  an  exile  from  the  court  of  his  excellent 
friend,  and  many  cherished  anticipations  of  his  prime  were  blighted  in  his  de- 
clining years.  But  when  royalty  deserted  him,  the  generous  people  sustained 
him.  He  achieved  great  triumphs  in  his  old  age;  and  finally,  on  the  llth  of 
March,  1820,  when  in  the  eighty-second  year  of  his  life,  he  was  laid  by  the  side 
of  Reynolds  and  Opie  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral. 


WILLIAM    BYRD. 

ABOUT  half-way  between  Richmond  and  Old  Jamestown,  on  the  James  River, 
in  Virginia,  is  a  fine  -brick  mansion,  surrounded  by  a  fertile  plantation, 
known  as  Westover.  It  was  the  residence  of  Colonel  William  Byrd,  a  wealthy 
cavalier,  who  came  from  England  during  the  Protectorate  of  Oliver  Cromwell. 
He  was  really  the  founder  of  the  city  of  Richmond,  at  the  Falls  of  the  James 
River.  A  small  fortification  had  been  erected  there,  as  a  defense  against  the 
Indians,  as  early  as  1645;  but  about  1680,  Colonel  Byrd,  having  received  a 
conditional  grant  of  land  at  the  Falls,  sent  more  than  fifty  able-bodied  men  there 
to  make  a  settlement.  He  erected  a  mill  and  other  buildings  for  the  use  of  their 
productions,  and  the  settlement  was  known  as  Byrd's  Warehouse.  In  1682, 
Colonel  Byrd  was  a  member  of  the  governor's  council,  and  he  was  much  in 
public  employment,  until  his  death.  When,  after  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of 
Nantes,  a  large  number  of  Huguenots,  or  French  Protestants,  came  to  America, 
three  hundred  of  them  were  cared  for,  with  parental  solicitude,  by  Colonel  Byrd, 
and  they  found  pleasant  homes  in  the  Virginia  colony.  Many  of  these  were 
educated  men,  and  in  Colonel  Byrd  they  found  an  agreeable  companion.  Ho 
possessed  fine  literary  and  scientific  tastes,  and  had  the  largest  library  in  Amer- 
ica, at  that  time.  In  1723,  he  was  one  of  the  commissioners  appointed  to  estab- 
lish the  boundary  line  between  Virginia  and  North  Carolina.  Toward  the  close 
of  his  Mfe  he  employed  his  pen  on  scientific  subjects,  and  was  made  a  member 
of  the  London  Royal  Society.  His  munificence  and  stylo  of  living  were  un- 
equalled in  the  colonies.  They  were  like  those  of  an  English  nobleman.  Ho 
died  in  1743,  at  the  age  of  almost  eighty *years,  leaving  his  homestead,  and  a 
splendid  fortune,  to  his  son  William.  He,  too,  became  a  public  man ;  and  in 
1756,  was  a  commissioner  to  treat  with  the  Indians  on  the  western  borders  of 
Virginia.  He  accompanied  the  expedition  against  Fort  Duquesne,  under  Wash- 
ington's command,  in  1758.  Being  a  spendthrift  and  a  gambler,  his  immense 
wealth  was  greatly  lessened,  at  his  death.  His  widow  occupied  the  Westover 
property  at  the  time  of  our  revolution ;  and  there  Benedict  Arnold  (who  was  her 
relative)  landed,  when  he  invaded  Virginia  in  the  service  of  his  royal  purchaser, 
in  1781.  De  Chastellux,  one  of  Rochambeau's  officers,  speaks  rapturously  of 
the  beauty  of  Westover,  and  the  pleasures  of  society  there. 


32  ELEAZER   WHEELOCK. 


ELEAZER    WHEELOCK. 

'THOSE  good  men  who  by  personal  sacrifices  and  diligent  efforts  seek  to  elevate 
1  their  fellow-beings  of  low  degree,  should  be  remembered  and  honored. 
Among  those  of  the  past  who  deserve  such  reward,  is  Eleazer  Wheelock,  the 
founder  of  the  first  school  for  the  Christian  education  of  Indian  youths  in  New 
England.  He  was  born  at  Windham,  Connecticut,  in  April,  1711 ;  and  in  1733, 
was  graduated  at  Yale  College.  Two  years  afterward  he  was  ordained  a  gospel 
minister,  and  settled  as  pastor,  at  Lebanon.  There  he  opened  a  school  for  the 
education  of  English  children;  and  in  1743,  his  first  Indian  pupil  was  admitted. 
He  was  a  Mohegan  youth  of  nineteen  years,  named  Samson  Occum,  who  had 
been  converted  to  Christianity  under  the  preaching  of  a  clergyman  at  Norwich. 
Before  entering  Mr.  Wheelock's  school,  Occum  had  learned  to  spell  out  sentences 
in  the  Bible  for  the  edification  of  his  eager  dusky  listeners.  He  was  anxious  to 
become  a  spiritual  teacher  of  his  tribe.  He  remained  with  Mr.  Wheelock  be- 
tween four  and  five  years,  and  afterward  became  a  very  successful  preacher 
among  the  natives  on  the  east  end  of  Long  Island.  His  success  with  Occum 
induced  Mr.  Wheelock  to  attempt  the  education  of  other  Indian  youths,  with 
special  reference  to  their  preparation  for  missionary  labors,  believing  that  they 
would  be  more  efficient  among  the  savages,  than  white  preachers.1  In  1762,  he 
had  more  than  twenty  Indian  youths  in  his  school,  the  expenses  being  paid  by 
voluntary  subscriptions,  small  legislative  grants,  and  contributions  from  the 
Boston  commissioners  of  the  Scotch  society  for  propagating  Christian  knowledge. 
A  farmer,  named  Moor,  gave  a  house  and  some  land,  adjoining  Mr.  Wheelock's 
residence,  for  the  use  of  the  institution,  and  it  became  known  as  Moor's  Indian 
Charity  School.  To  increase  its  usefulness,  it  was  determined  to  seek  aid  in 
England;  and  in  1766,  Occum  and  Eev.  Mr.  Whitaker  of  Norwich,  went 
thither  for  that  purpose.  The  money  collected  by  them  was  put  into  the  hands 
of  trustees,  in  England,  at  the  head  of  whom  was  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth ;  and 
its  expenditure  was  intrusted  to  the  Scotch  society. 

Hoping  to  be  more  efficient  on  the  borders  of  the  Indian  country,  wherein 
white  settlements  had  not  yet  been  planted,  Dr.  Wheelock  resigned  his  pastoral 
charge  at  Lebanon,  and  established  his  school  at  Hanover,  in  New  Hampshire. 
He  also  founded  a  college  there,  and  named  it  Dartmouth,  in  honor  of  the  Earl, 
notwithstanding  that  gentleman  was  opposed  to  the  project,  fearing  it  might 
interfere  with  the  Indian  School.2  Governor  Wentworth  gave  it  a  charter,  and 
for  nine  years  Dr.  Wheelock  labored  vigorously  at  the  head  of  each  establish- 
ment. The  war  for  Independence  seriously  affected  the  prosperity  of  both  en- 
terprises, yet  the  self-sacrificing  founder  saw  glorious  fruit  produced  by  his 
planting.  Among  those  white  missionaries  whom  he  prepared  for  their  woik, 
was  the  faithful  Kirkland,  so  long  a  noble  laborer  among  the  tribes  in  the  in- 
terior of  New  York.  Dr.  Wheelock  died  at  Hanover,  on  the  24th  of  April,  1779, 
at  the  age  of  sixty-eight  years. 

1.  This  opinion  proved  to  be  erroneous.     About  one-half  of  those  educated  for  the  ministry  returned 
to  their  old  habits  and  vices,  when  they  got  among  their  people  again.    Among  Mr.  Wheelock's  pupils 
was  Brant,  the  celebrated  Mohawk  chief. 

2.  This  fact  exhibits  the  modesty  of  Dr.  Wheelock,  and  at  the  same  time  shows  that  undue  deference 
which  all  persons  formerly  rendered  to  titles  and  dignities.    The  college  ought  to  perpetuate  the  name 
of  Dr.  Wheelock,  by  its  own  litle. 


CADWALLADER   GOLDEN. 


33 


CAI3WALLADEK    GOLDEN. 

'THE  representatives  of  royal  power,  in  America,  generally  regarded  the  people 
JL  as  their  subjects,  rather  than  as  fellow-citizens,  and  ruled  by  despotic  power 
rather  than  by  kindness  and  conciliation.  There  were  honorable  exceptions, 
and  among  these  was  Cadwallader  Golden,  whose  character  and  public  life  were 
truthfully  portrayed,  more  than  forty  years  ago, by  John  W.  Francis,  M.D.,  now 
[1854]  the  Nestor  of  literature  and  science  in  New  York.  Golden  was  acting 
governor  of  New  York  when  the  stamp-act  riots  occurred,  and  was  treated  with 
indignity  by  a  mob,  because  he  was  the  representative  of  the  king,  and  at  the 
same  time  was  highly  respected  by  them  as  a  man  and  valuable  citizen. 

Cadwallader  Golden  was  born  in  Dunse,  Scotland,  on  the  17th  of  February, 
1688.  He  completed  his  collegiate  studies  at  the  university  of  Edinburgh,  in 
1705,  and  after  devoting  three  years  to  the  study  of  mathematics  and  medical 
science,  he  came  to  America,  where  he  remained  five  years,  as  a  practicing 
physician.  He  went  to  Great  Britain  in  1715,  and  formed  the  acquaintance  of 
Halley  and  other  leading  men  of  science ;  and  the  following  year  he  married  a 
pretty  Scotch  girl,  returned  to  America,  and  settled  in  the  city  of  New  York. 
Golden  soon  abandoned  his  profession,  for  public  employment.  He  was  made 
surveyor-general  of  the  province,  a  master  in  chancery,  and  finally  became  one 


34  JOHN  SMITH. 


of  the  governor's  council.  About  the  year  1750,  he  obtained  a  patent  for  a 
large  tract  of  unsettled  land  near  Newburgh,  in  Orange  county,  and  named  his 
manor,  Coldenham.  There,  after  the  year  1755,  he  resided,  with  his  family,  most 
of  the  time,  engaged  in  agriculture  and  in  literary  and  scientific  pursuits.  Many 
learned  essays  from  his  pen  enriched  the  medical  and  scientific  publications  of 
his  day ;  and  his  History  of  the  Five  Nations  of  Indians,  is  a  noble  monument  in 
testimony  of  his  careful  and  judicious  researches  in  that  special  field  of  inquiry. 
Almost  all  of  the  scientific  men  of  Europe  were  his  correspondents,  and  Franklin 
and  other  leading  Americans  were  among  his  intimate  epistolary  friends.  Botany 
was  his  favorite  study,  and  he  was  a  constant  and  valued  correspondent  of  Lin- 
naeus, the  great  master  of  the  science,  for  a  series  of  years.  His  voluminous 
papers  are  now  among  the  choice  treasures  of  the  New  York  Historical  Society. 
In  1760,  Dr.  Golden  was  appointed  lieutenant-governor  of  the  province  of 
New  York,  and  became  the  acting  magistrate,  at  eighty  years  of  age.  He 
managed  public  affairs  with  great  prudence  during  all  the  trying  scenes  of  the 
Stamp- Act  excitement;  and  the  Sons  of  Liberty  respected  him,  while  they  defied 
his  delegated  power.  He  was  released  from  office,  by  Governor  Try  on,  in  1775, 
and  retired  to  his  country  seat,  at  Flushing,  Long  Island,  where  he  died  on  the 
28th  of  September,  1776;  a  few  days  before  that  great  conflagration  which  con- 
sumed more  than  five  hundred  buildings  in  the  city  of  New  York.  Governor 
Golden  was  then  almost  eighty-nine  years  of  age. 


JOHN    SMITH. 

THERE  are  men  whose  career  appears  meteor-like  in  brilliancy  and  progress, 
which  nevertheless  makes  permanent  impressions  upon  the  world's  history, 
and  beams  in  the  firmament  of  past  events,  with  steady,  planetary  lustre.  John 
Smith  belongs  to  the  meteor-heroes  of  our  race.  He  was  born  at  Willoughby,  in 
Lincolnshire,  England,  in  1559,  and  in  early  childhood  was  distinguished  for  his 
daring  spirit  and  love  of  adventure.  At  the  age  of  thirteen  years,  he  sold  his 
books  and  satchel  to  procure  money  to  pay  his  way  to  the  sea-shore,  for  he  had 
resolved  to  try  life  on  the  ocean  wave.  He  was  prevented  from  embarking,  and 
apprenticed  to  a  merchant.  Two  years  afterward  he  ran  away,  went  to  France, 
and  then  to  the  Low  Countries,  and  there  studied  military  tactics.  With  a  por- 
tion of  his  deceased  father's  estate,  young  Smith,  at  the  age  of  seventeen  years, 
went  abroad,  like  a  knight-errant,  in  search  of  adventures.  On  a  voyage  from 
Marseilles  to  Naples,  a  great  storm  arose.  The  crew  of  the  vessel  were  Eoman 
Catholics,  who.  believing  the  young  heretic  Englishman  to  be  a  Jonah,  cast  him 
into  the  sea  to  Appease  the  angry  waters.  He  swam  to  a  small  island,  and  there 
embarked  in  a  French  vessel  for  Alexandria,  in  Egypt.  From  thence  he  went 
to  Italy,  and  then  to  Austria,  where  he  entered  the  imperial  army.  His  valor 
soon  procured  him  the  command  of  a  troop  of  horse,  which,  in  the  war  against 
the  Turks,  obtained  the  name  of  The  Fiery  Dragoons.  On  one  occasion,  during 
a  siege,  a  Turkish  officer  offered  to  engage  in  a  duel  with  any  Christian  soldier, 
"to  amuse  the  ladies."  The  lot  fell  to  Smith.  They  fought  in  sight  of  both 
armies.  Smith  cut  off  his  antagonist's  head,  and  carried  it  in  triumph  to  the 
Austrian  camp;  and  then  fought  two  other  Turkish  champions  with  the  same 
result.  He  was  afterward  captured  and  sold  to  a  Pacha,  who  sent  his  prisoner 
as  a  present  to  his  sweetheart,  to  be  her  slave.  Her  love  was  excited,  and  to 
insure  his  safety,  she  sent  Smith  to  her  brother.  The  Turk  treated  the  captive 
cruelly.  Soon  an  opportunity  for  escape  was  offered,  when  Smith  killed  his 


DAVID   RITTENHOUSE.  35 

tyrant,  fled  into  Muscovy,  and  found  his  way  to  Austria.  The  war  had  ended, 
and  Smith  departed  from  the  Adriatic,  with  a  French  sea-captain,  for  Morocco. 
He  was  engaged  in  a  sea-fight  near  the  Canary  Islands,  with  the  Spaniards ;  and 
then,  after  a  long  absence,  returned  to  his  native  countnr.  His  restless  spirit 
now  yearned  for  adventures  in  the  New  "World,  and  accompanying  the  first 
English  expedition  which  successfully  planted  a  settlement  in  America,  he  be- 
came the  real  founder  of  the  Virginia  colony.  The  settlers  became  jealous  of 
his  talent,  on  the  voyage,  and,  ignorant  that  he  was  named  in  the  "sealed  box"1 
as  one  of  the  Council,  they  put  him  in  irons,  under  the  plea  that  he  intended  to 
make  himself  King  of  Virginia.  He  was  released  when  his  name  appeared 
among  the  appointed  rulers.  He  possessed  great  energy,  and  he  not  only  sup- 
ported good  government  by  his  presence,  but  saved  the  colony  from  destruction. 
He  was  rescued  from  death  by  Pocahontas,  the  daughter  of  the  Indian  king, 
while  a  prisoner  among  them ;  and  he  acquired  such  influence  over  the  savages, 
that  they  were  friendly  to  the  English  while  Smith  ruled  the  colony.  He  ex- 
plored the  coast  from  Pamlico  Sound  to  the  Delaware  river,  and  constructed  a 
map  of  the  country.  An  accident  caused  him  to  go  to  England  for  surgical  at- 
tendance. Five  years  afterward  he  made  a  trading  voyage  to  America,  explored 
the  coast  from  the  Thames  to  the  Penobscot,  made  a  map  of  the  country,  and 
called  it  New  England.  Smith  offered  to  accompany  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  to 
America,  in  1620,  but  on  account  of  his  aristocratic  notions,  his  proffered  ser- 
vices were  declined.  He  died  in  London,  in  1631,  at  the  age  of  seventy-two 
years. 


DAVID    RITTENHOUSE. 

"VfEAR  the  banks  of  the  beautiful  "Wissahiccon,  in  the  vicinity  of  Germantown, 
li  four  miles  from  Philadelphia,  lived  three  hermits  a  century  and  a  half  ago  ; 
and  near  their  hiding-places  from  the  world's  ken,  a  mile  from  the  old  village 
where  the  good  count  Zinzendorf,1  the  Moravian,  labored  and  reposed,  was  the 
birth-place  of  one  whose  name  is  co-extensive  with  scientific  knowledge.  It 
was  David  Eittenhouse,  the  eminent  mathematician,  who  was  born  in  Rox- 
borough  township,  on  the  8th  of  April,  1732.  His  father  was  a  humble  farmer, 
and  David  was  his  chief  assistant  when  his  life  approached  young  manhood. 
The  geometrical  diagrams  which  disfigured  his  implements  of  labor,  the  barn 
doors,  and  the  pig-sty,  attested  the  peculiar  workings  of  his  brain  while  yet  a 
mere  lad.  These  indications  of  genius  would  doubtless  have  been  disregarded, 
and  his  aspirations  remained  unsatisfied,  had  not  a  feeble  body  made  the  aban- 
donment of  field  labor  a  stern  necessity.  David  was  apprenticed  to  a  clock  and 
mathematical  instrument  maker,  and  the  pursuit  being  consonant  with  his  taste, 
he  was  eminently  successful. 

Rittenhouse  was  a  severe  student,  but  on  account  of  his  pecuniary  wants,  ho 
was  deprived,  in  a  great  degree,  of  the  most  valuable  sources  of  information, 
especially  concerning  the  progress  of  science  in  Europe,  While  Newton  and 
Liebnitz  were  warmly  disputing  for  the  honor  of  first  discoverer  of  Fluxion,*, 
Rittenhouse,  entirely  ignorant  of  what  they  had  done,  became  the  inventor  of 
that  remarkable  feature  in  algebraical  analysis.  Applying  the  knowledge  which 

1.  The  silly  King  James,  instead  of  making  an  open  appointment  of  a  council  for  the  govcrrraert  of 
Virginia,  placed  their  names  in  a  sealed  box,  with  directions  not  to  open  it  until  their  arrival  on  the 
shores  of  the  New  World. 

1.  Zimend<vf  was  the  founder  cf  the  Moravians,  or  United  Brethren,  and  preached  in  Germantowr, 
for  u  while. 


36 


DAVID   EITTENHOUSE. 


he  derived  from  study  and  reflection,  to  the  mechanic  arts,  he  produced  a  plan- 
etarium, or  an  exhibition  of  the  movements  of  the  solar  system,  by  machinery. 
It  is  a  most  wonderful  piece  of  mechanism,  especially  when  we  consider  the 
fact  that  the  inventor  was  yet  an  obscure  mechanic  in  a  country  village.  That 
work  of  art  is  in  the  possession  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey,  at  Princeton,  it 
having  been  purchased  on  the  recommendation  of  President  "Witherspoon.1  It 
gave  him  great  reputation ;  and  in  1770,  he  went  to  Philadelphia,  where  he 
pursued  his  mechanical  vocation,  and  met,  daily,  members  of  the  Philosophical 
Society  of  that  city,  to  whom  he  had,  two  years  before,  communicated  the  fact 
that  he  had  calculated,  with  great  exactness,  the  transit  of  Venus,  which  oc- 
curred on  the  3d  of  June,  1769.  Rittenhouse  was  one  of  those  whom  the  Society 
appointed  to  observe  it.  Only  three  times  before,  in  the  whole  range  of  human 
observations,  had  mortal  vision  beheld  the  orb  of  Venus  pass  across  the  disc  of 
the  sun.2  Upon  the  exactitude  of  the  performance  according  to  calculations, 
depended  many  important  astronomical  problems,  and  the  hour  was  looked  for- 

1.  When  Cornwallis  arrived  at  Princeton,  after  the  severe  batlle  at  that  place  on  the  morning  of  tha 
2d  of  January,  1777,  he  saw  and  admired  that  work  of  art,  and  determined  to  carry  it  away  with  him. 
The  Americans  caused  him  to  leave  the  place  too  soon  to  accomplish  his  purpose.     During  the  same 
year,  Silas  Deane,  the  American  commissioner  at  the  French  court,  actually  proposed  to  present  the 
planetarium  to  the  French  king,  as  a  bonus  for  his  good  will !    The  conqueror  and  the  diplomatist  were 
both  foiled. 

2.  See  sketch  of  John  Winthrop,  LL.D.,  page  44. 


UNO  AS.  37 


ward  to,  by  philosophers,  with  intense  interest.  As  the  moment  approached, 
according  to  his  own  calculations,  Rittenhouse  became  greatly  excited.  When 
the  discs  of  the  two  planets  touched,  at  precisely  the  expected  moment,  the 
philosopher  fainted.  His  highest  hopes  were  realized ;  and  on  the  9th  of  No- 
vember following  he  was  blessed  with  the  sight  of  a  transit  of  Mercury. 

"When  Dr.  Franklin  died,  Rittenhouse  was  chosen  President  of  the  American 
Philosophical  Society,  to  fill  his  place ;  and  from  his  own  earnings  he  gave  the 
institution  fifteen  hundred  dollars,  on  the  day  of  his  inauguration.  His  fame 
was  now  world-wide,  and  many  official  honors  awaited  his  acceptance.  He 
held  the  office  of  treasurer  of  the  state  of  Pennsylvania,  for  many  years ;  and  in 
1792,  he  was  appointed  the  first  Director  of  the  Mint.  Failing  health  compelled 
him  to  resign  that  trust,  in  1795;  and  on  the  6th  of  June,  the  following  year, 
he  died  the  death  of  a  Christian,  at  the  age  of  sixty-four  years. 


U  N  C  A  •  S . 

UNLIKE  most  of  tho  Indian  chiefs  and  sachems  who  appear  conspicuous  in 
our  early  annals,  the  line  of  descent  from  Uncas  comes  down  almost  to  our 
own  time,  and  he  has  been  honored,  in  preference  to  all  others,  with  a  commem- 
orative monument  from  the  hands  of  the  white  man.  Uncas  was  a  Pequod,  by 
birth.  Rebelling  against  his  chief,  Sassacus,  he  was  expelled  from  the  Pequod 
domain,  and  by  his  talent  and  sagacity  soon  took  the  rank  and  power  of  a  chief 
among  the  Mohegans.  He  became  the  inveterate  enemy  of  Sassacus ;  and  he 
was  at  the  head  of  the  Mohegans  who  accompanied  Captain  Mason  against  the 
Pequods,  in  1637.  He  was  always  the  firm  friend  of  the  English ;  and  during  that 
dark  period,  when  King  Philip  succeeded  in  arming  all  the  New  England  tribes 
against  the  white  people,  Uncas  remained  faithful.  He  even  took  up  arms 
against  Philip,  and  with  two  hundred  Mohegans,  and  a  greater  number  of  sub- 
jugated Pequods,  he  marched  with  Major  Talcott  to  Brookfield  and  Hadley,  and 
at  the  latter  place  assisted  in  defeating  seven  hundred  of  Philip's  savage  allies. 

Like  Philip,  Uncas  was  opposed  to  the  preaching  of  Christianity  among  his 
people,  preferring  to  have  them  believe  in  the  religion  of  his  fathers.  Yet  he 
never  used  coercive  measures  in  opposition;  and,  finally,  he  so  far  yielded,  that 
on  one  occasion,  when  the  country  was  suffering  from  a  great  drought,  he  asked 
a  Christian  minister  to  pray  for  rain.  A  copious  shower  fell  the  next  day,  and 
Uncas  became  like  King  Agrippa  in  the  presence  of  Paul — he  was  almost  per- 
suaded to  become  a  Christian.  In  1659,  Uncas  gave  a  deed  to  several  white 
people,  conveying  to  them  a  large  tract  of  land  at  the  head  of  the  Pequod  river 
[the  Thames],  and  there  the  city  of  Norwich  was  founded.  The  exact  period 
of  the  death  of  Uncas  is  unknown.  It  is  supposed  to  have  occurred  about  1683, 
when  he  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Owaneko,  or  Oneco,  who  distinguished  him- 
self on  the  side  of  the  English,  in  King  Philip's  war.  In  his  old  age,  Oneco 
used  to  go  about  begging,  accompanied  by  his  squaw.  As  he  could  not  speak 
English  well,  Richard  Bushnell  wrote  the  following  lines  for  him  to  present  to 
the  benevolent : 

"  Oneco,  King,  his  queen  doth  bring  to  beg  a  little  food, 
As  they  go  along  their  friends  among,  to  try  how  kind  and  good  ; 
Some  pork,  some  beef,  for  their  relief;  and  if  you  can't  spare  bread, 
She'll  thank  you  for  your  pudding,  as  they  go  a  gooding,  and  carry  it  on  her  head." 

A  neat  granite  obelisk,  about  twenty  feet  in  height,  has  been  erected  in  tho 
city  of  Norwich,  to  the  memory  of  Uncas.  The  foundation  stone  was  laid  in 


38  KING   PHILIP. 


1825,  by  General  Jackson;  and  in  the  small  cemetery  in  which  it  stands,  a  de- 
scendant of  Uncas,  named  Mazeon,  was  buried  in  1827.  There  are  a  few  of  the 
Mohegan  tribe  yet  living,  near  Norwich ;  but  soon  it  may  be  written  upon  a 
tomb-stone,  "The  last  of  the  Mohegans." 


KINQ    PHILIP. 

A  GENEROUS  mind  readily  appreciates  and  commends  an  exhibition  of  true 
A.  patriotism,  even  by  an  enemy.  Those  who  regard  the  Indian  as  without 
the  pale  of  the  sympathies  of  civilization,  are  often  compelled  to  yield  reluctant 
admiration  of  the  qualities  which  make  men  heroes,  sages,  and  patriots,  when 
exhibited  by  this  tabooed  race.  No  one  appears  more  prominent  as  a  claimant 
for  consideration  on  account  of  these  qualities,  than  Metacomet,  the  last  chief  of 
the  "Wampanoags  of  Rhode  Island,  known  in  history  as  King  Philip.  He  was 
one  of  two  sons  of  Massasoit,  the  sachem1  who  gave  a  friendly  welcome  to  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers.  They  were  named,  respectively,  Alexander  and  Philip,  by 
governor  "Winslow,  in  compliment  to  their  father.  Alexander  was  the  eldest, 
and  succeeded  his  father  in  authority.  He  died,  and  his  mantle  fell  upon  Philip, 
a  bold,  powerful-minded  warrior,  whose  keen  perception  had  already  given  him 
uneasiness  respecting  the  future  of  his  race.  He  saw,  year  after  year,  the  en- 
croachments of  the  white  people,  yet  he  faithfully  kept  the  treaty  of  his  father, 
with  them.  He  even  endured  insults  and  gross  indignities ;  and  when  his  hot- 
blooded  warriors  gathered  around  his  throne  upon  Mount  Hope,  and  counselled 
war,  he  refused  to  listen.  At  length  forbearance  seemed  no  longer  a  virtue, 
and  the  hatchet  was  lifted. 

Among  the  "praying  Indians,"  as  Eliot's  converts  were  called,  was  one  who 
had  been  educated  at  Cambridge,  and  was  employed  as  a  teacher.  On  account 
of  some  misdemeanor,  he  had  fled  to  Philip,  and  became  his  secretary.  He 
afterward  returned  to  the  white  people,  and  accused  Philip  of  treasonable  de- 
signs. Because  of  this  charge,  he  was  waylaid  and  murdered  by  some  of  the 
"Wampanoags.  Three  suspected  men  were  tried,  convicted  on  slender  testimony, 
and  hanged.  The  ire  of  the  "Wampanoags  was  fiercely  kindled.  Philip  was 
cautious,  for  he  knew  his  weakness;  his  young  warriors  were  impetuous,  for 
they  counted  not  the  cost  of  war.  The  sachem  was  finally  overruled;  and  re- 
membering the  indignities  which  he  had  suffered  from  the  English,  he  trampled 
solemn  treaties  under  foot,  and  lighted  the  flame  of  war.  Messengers  were  sent 
to  other  tribes,  and  with  all  the  power  of  Indian  eloquence,  Philip  exhorted  his 
followers  to  curse  the  white  man,  and  to  swear  eternal  hostility  to  the  "pale 
faces."  The  events  which  followed  have  been  detailed  in  our  sketch  of  Captain 
Church,  and  need  not  be  repeated  here.  Metacomet  was  a  patriot  of  truest 
stamp,  and  his  general  character,  measured  by  the  standard  of  true  appreciation, 
in  which  all  controlling  circumstances  are  considered,  bears  a  favorable  com- 
parison with  the  patriots  of  other  lands,  and  of  more  enlightened  people.  His 
death  occurred  in  August,  1776,  when  he  was  about  fifty  years  of  age.  During 
the  war,  the  government  of  Plymouth  offered  thirty  shillings  for  every  head  of 
an  Indian  killed  in  battle.  The  faithless  Wampanoag  received  that  price — 
"thirty  pieces  of  silver" — for  his  master's  head. 

1.  Sachem  and  Chief  are  distinct  characters,  yet  they  are  sometimes  found  in  the  same  person.  A 
sachem  is  the  civil  head  of  a  tribe  ;  a  chief  is  a  military  leader.  Philip  was  both. 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN. 


39 


BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN. 

rE  words  of  Solomon,  "Seest  thou  a  man  diligent  in  his  business?  he  shall 
stand  before  kings;  lie  shall  not  stand  before  mean  men,"  attracted  the 
attention  of  a  Boston  tallow-chandler's  son,  when  he  was  yet  in  youthhood. 
That  youth  was  the  immortal  Benjamin  Franklin,  who  was  born  on  the  morning 
of  the  17th  of  January,  1706,  and  was  christened  that  afternoon.  At  the  age 
of  eight  years  he  went  to  a  grammar  school ;  but  at  ten  his  services  were  re- 
quired in  his  father's  business,  and  his  education  was  neglected.  At  the  age  of 
twelve  years  he  was  apprenticed  to  his  brother  James,  a  printer.  He  made 
great  proficiency  in  his  business,  and  a  love  for  reading  was  gratified,  often  at 
the  expense  of  half  a  night's  sleep.  The  New  England  Courant,  printed  by  his 
brother  in  1721,  was  the  third  newspaper  established  in  America.1  Young 
Franklin  wrote  several  essays  for  it,  which  attracted  much  attention.  The 
author  was  unknown  and  unsuspected.  At  about  the  same  time  he  read  the 

1.  The  Other  two  warj  The  Baittm  Ne.u-a  Ltitr.r  mid  The  Boston  Gazette. 


40  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN. 

productions  of  Shaftesbury  and  Collins,  and  he  became  a  sceptic  in  religion,  and 
a  powerful  disputant,  by  the  use  of  the  Socratic  method  of  argument — asking 
questions.  Because  of  his  scepticism  he  became  unpopular  in  Boston.  This 
fact,  and  ill  treatment  by  his  brother,  determined  him  to  leave  the  place.  Ho 
went  to  New  York  in  a  sloop,  and  from  thence  to  Philadelphia,  on  foot,  where 
he  soon  procured  employment,  as  a  printer,  in  the  establishment  of  Mr.  Keimer. 
His  intelligence  and  good  conduct  attracted  the  attention  of  prominent  men,  among 
whom  was  Governor  Keith,  who  advised  him  to  go  into  business  for  himself. 
With  promises  of  aid  from  the  governor,  he  started  for  London  to  buy  printing 
materials.  The  aid  was  withheld ;  and  on  his  arrival,  he  sought  employment 
for  a  livelihood.  He  was  now  only  eighteen  years  of  age.  By  the  practice  of 
the  most  rigid  economy,  he  saved  a  greater  part  of  his  wages ;  and  his  influence 
among  his  fellow-workmen,  against  useless  expenses  for  beer  and  other  things, 
was  beneficial.  At  night  he  used  his  pen ;  and  by  a  Dissertation  on  Liberty,  in 
which  he  contended  that  virtue  and  vice  are  nothing  more  than  conventional 
distinctions,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mandeville  and  other  infidel  writers. 
Franklin  always  looked  back  to  these  early  efforts  of  his  pen,  in  opposition  to 
Christian  ethics,  with  great  regret. 

Franklin  returned  to  Philadelphia  in  the  Autumn  of  1726,  as  a  merchant's 
clerk ;  but  the  death  of  his  employer,  the  following  year,  induced  him  to  work, 
again,  for  Mr.  Keimer.  His  ingenuity  was  profitable  to  his  employer,  for  he 
engraved  devices  on  type  metal,  made  printer's  ink,  and  in  various  ways  saved 
money  to  the  establishment.  In  1728,  he  formed  a  partnership  in  the  printing 
business  with  Mr.  Meredith,  but  it  was  dissolved  the  following  year.  He  then 
purchased  Keimer's  miserably-conducted  paper,  issued  it  in  a  greatly  improved 
style,  uttered  in  it  many  of  those  aphorisms  which  have  since  become  famous, 
and  then  laid  the  foundation  of  his  future  usefulness.  He  married  in  1730, 
lived  frugally,  and  in  the  course  of  three  or  four  years  "began  to  save  money. 
He  opened  a  small  shop  for  the  sale  of  stationery,  to  which  his  pleasant  and 
edifying  conversation  drew  many  of  the  men  of  literary  taste  in  the  town.  A 
literary  club  was  formed,  in  which  questions  were  discussed  which  required 
reference  to  books.  The  members  brought  such  as  they  needed,  from  time  to 
time,  and  Franklin  conceived  the  idea  of  forming  a  public  library.  It  was  pop- 
ular; and  in  1731,  the  foundation  of  that  noble  institution,  the  Philadelphia 
Library,  was  laid.1  The  following  year  he  commenced  the  publication  of  Poor 
Richard's  Almanac.  It  was  full  of  sound  maxims,  and  its  popularity  was  so 
great,  that  he  sold  ten  thousand  copies  annually.  He  continued  it  until  1757, 
when  the  demands  of  public  business  upon  his  .time,  compelled  him  to  relin- 
quish it. 

Franklin's  first  public  employment  was  undertaken  in  1736,  when  he  was 
appointed  clerk  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania.  The  following  year 
he  was  appointed  Postmaster  of  Philadelphia.  He  now  began  to  be  one  of  the 
most  popular  men  in  the  province.  The  fact  is  demonstrated  by  the  circum- 
stance that,  by  his  personal  exertions,  he  obtained  ten  thousand  names  to  a 
voluntary  association  for  the  defence  of  the  province,  in  1744,  when  an  attempt 
to  procure  a  militia  law  had  failed.  He  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  Assembly 
in  1747,  and  was  regularly  re-elected  for  ten  years.  Although  Franklin  was  no 
orator,  yet  no  man  possessed  greater  influence  than  he,  in  that  body.  Yet  these 
public  employments  did  not  draw  his  attention  from  books  and  scientific  inves- 
tigations. For  a  long  time  he  held  a  theory  that  the  electricity  of  the  scientific 

1.  The  association  at  first  consisted  of  40  members.  The  library  was  first  established  in  the  hojpse  of 
Franklin's  warm  friend,  Robert  Orace.  In  1740,  it  was  placed  in  Ihe  State  House.  In  1773,  it  was 
removed  to  Carpenter's  Hall :  and  in  1790,  the  building  erected  for  its  use,  was  completed.  The  associa- 
tion was  incorporated  in  1742,  as  The  Library  Company  of  Philadelphia. 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN.  41 

• 

apparatus  and  the  lightning  of  the  clouds  were  identical;  and  in  1752,  he  de- 
monstrated the  truth  of  his  theory  by  unmistakable  experiments.1  He  imme- 
diately applied  the  discovery  to  a  practical  use,  by  showing  that  pointed  iron 
rods,  extending  from  a  distance  above  the  highest  part  of  a  house  to  the  ground, 
would  preserve  the  house  from  lightning,  by  conducting  it  into  the  earth.  The 
theory  and  its  demonstration  were  made  known  in  Europe,  and  Franklin's  name 
became  known  and  venerated  throughout  the  scientific  world. 

In  1753,  Franklin  was  made  deputy  postmaster-general  of  the  British  colonies 
in  America,  and  the  same  year  he  projected  and  established  the  Academy  of 
Sciences  of  Philadelphia.  In  1754,  he  was  one  of  the  colonial  delegates  who 
met  in  Congress  at  Albany  to  devise  means  of  defence  against  the  French;  and 
there  he  submitted  apian  of  union,  similar,  in  many  respects,  to  our  Federal 
Constitution,  but  it  was  rejected  by  the  British  government  and  the  colonial 
assemblies  for  widely  different  reasons.  Three  years  afterward,  Franklin  was 
sent  to  England  as  the  agent  of  Pennsylvania,  and  was  employed  in  the  same 
capacity  by  three  other  colonies.  There  he  associated  with  the  greatest  men  of 
the  time,  and  the  poor  journeyman  printer  of  a  few  years  before,  "stood  before 
kings,"  was  caressed  by  men  of  learning,  was  made  a  member  of  the  Royal 
Society,  and  honored  with  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws,  by  the  Universities  of 
Edinburgh  and  Oxford.  He  returned  to  America  in  1762,  and  resumed  his  seat 
in  the  Assembly ;  but  two  years  afterward,  the  dispute  between  the  colonies 
and  the  government  having  commenced  in  earnest,  he  was  again  sent  as  agent 
for  Pennsylvania,  to  England.  He  remained  abroad  until  1775,  during  which 
time  he  visited  the  Continent,  and  became  acquainted  with  the  most  learned 
men  in  Europe.  On  the  day  of  his  arrival  in  America,  he  was  elected  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Continental  Congress;  and  he  was  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  the  following  year.  During  the  whole  period  of  the 
revolution  he  was  continually  active  in  a  civil  capacity  at  home  or  abroad. 
Congress  sent  him  as  commissioner  to  the  French  court  in  1776,  and  he  was  one 
of  the  most  accomplished  and  adroit  diplomatists  at  Versailles.  Finally,  when 
peace  was  determined  upon,  Franklin  was  one  of  the  leading  commissioners  in 
forming  those  treaties  with  Great  Britain  and  other  powers,  which  secured  the 
independence  of  the  colonies.  He  was  then  appointed  Minister  Plenipotentiary 
at  the  French  court,  and  "  stood  before  kings  "  until,  by  his  own  request,  another 
was  appointed  in  his  place,  and  he  returned  home.  He  arrived  at  Philadelphia 
early  in  the  Autumn  of  1785,  and  was  received  with  the  highest  republican 
honors.  In  1787,  he  was  a  leading  man  in  the  convention  which  formed  the 
Federal  Constitution ;  and  the  following  year  he  withdrew  from  public  life, 
being  then  eighty-two  years  of  age.  On  the  17th  of  April,  1790,  that  great 
Philosopher,  Statesman,  and  Sage,  was  undressed  for  the  grave ;  and  beneath  a 
neat  marble  slab,  in  the  burial-ground  of  Christ  Church,  Philadelphia,  rest  his 
mortal  remains.2 

1.  He  sent  up  an  iron-pointed  kite  toward  a  hovering  thunder  cloud,  and  held  it  by  a  silken  string, 
attached  to  the  long  hempen  one.    To  the  silken  end  was  fastened  an  iron  key,  and  when  the  cloud 
passed  over,  he  touched  the  key  with  his  knuckles,  and  received  a  spark.    It  was  a  bold  but  successful 
experiment. 

2.  According  to  his  directions,  the  only  inscription  on  the  broad  slab  is, 

BENJAMIN  ) 

AND         \  FRANKLIN. 
DEBORAH  ) 
1790. 

Many  years  before,  he  wrote  the  following  epitaph  for  himself: 

"  The  body  of  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN,  Printer,  Like  the  cover  of  an  old  Book,  Its  contents  torn  out, 
(  A.nd  stripped  of  its  lettering  and  gilding,)  Lies  here,  food  for  worms.  But  the  work  shall  not  be  lost, 
For  it  will  (as  he  believed)  appear  once  more,  In  a  new  and  more  elegant  edition,  Revised  and  corrected, 
by  THE  AUTHOR." 


42  NATHANIEL   BACON. 


NATHANIEL    BACON. 

OFTEN,  in  men's  estimation,  success  makes  effort  a  virtue,  but  failure  makes  it 
a  crime.  A  successful  blow  at  tyranny  is  called  patriotism ;  an  unsuccess- 
ful one  is  branded  as  rebellion.  Nathaniel  Bacon  lifted  his  arm  for  popular 
freedom,  failed,  and  history  recorded  his  name  among  traitors.  He  was  a  young 
man  of  great  boldness  and  energy  of  character.  His  birth-place  was  in  Suffolk 
county,  England,  and  in  London  he  was  educated  for  the  legal  profession.  He 
came  to  America  during  Cromwell's  rule  in  England,  and  was  soon  called  to  a 
seat  in  the  council  of  Governor  Berkeley.  Thoroughly  democratic  in  his  views, 
Bacon  often  crossed  the  official  path  of  the  haughty  cavalier,  as  an  assertor  of 
popular  rights,  especially  after  the  restoration  of  Charles  the  Second  made  the 
Virginia  loyalists  insolent  and  tyrannical.  The  assembly,  under  the  influence 
of  the  governor,  abridged  the  liberties  of  the  people,  propagated  the  vipers  of 
intolerance,  and  imposed  heavy  fines  upon^  Baptists  and  Quakers.  The  people 
soon  learned  to  despise  the  name  of  king,"  and  a  strong  republican  party  was 
formed. 

Circumstances  soon  favored  a  demonstration  of  republican  strength.  Some 
Indian  tribes  commenced  depredations  upon  the  settlements  in  the  upper  part 
of  Virginia,  and  they  finally  penetrated  as  far  as  Bacon's  plantation  in  the  vi- 
cinity of  Richmond.  Berkeley  appeared  indifferent,  and  the  planters  asked  the 
privilege  of  protecting  themselves.  The  governor  refused ;  when  at  least  five 
hundred  men  collected  together,  chose  Bacon  for  commander,  and  drove  the 
Indians  back  to  the  Potomac.  Berkeley  was  jealous  of  Bacon,  proclaimed  him 
a  traitor,  and  sent  troops  to  pursue  and  arrest  him.  The  people  arose  in  re- 
bellion, the  aristocratic  assembly  was  dissolved  and  a  republican  one  elected ; 
universal  suffrage  was  restored ;  Bacon  was  chosen  commander-in-chief  of  the 
military,  and  a  commission  for  him  was  demanded  of  the  governor.  That  official 
was  alarmed  and  promised  compliance,  not,  however,  until  Bacon,  with  a  largo 
force,  approached  Jamestown.  He  was  compelled  to  attest  the  bravery  and 
loyalty  of  Bacon ;  and  on  the  4th  of  July,  1676,  just  a  hundred  years  before  the 
colonies  were  declared  free  states,  a  more  liberal  and  enlightened  legislation 
commenced  in  Virginia.  That  day  was  truly  the  harbinger  of  American  inde- 
pendence and  nationality. 

Again  the  Indians  approached,  and  Bacon  proceeded  to  drive  them  back.  As 
soon  as  he  had  departed,  Berkeley  treacherously  published  a  proclamation,  re- 
versing the  proceedings  of  the  assembly,  repudiating  Bacon's  commission,  and 
declaring  him  a  traitor.  Back  to  Jamestown  the  indignant  patriot  marched, 
and  lighted  a  civil  war.  The  governor  and  adhering  loyalists  were  driven  be- 
yond the  York  river,  and  the  wives  of  many  were  detained  as  hostages  for  peace. 
Troops  came  from  England  to  support  Berkeley;  and  when  rumor  told  of  their 
march  up  the  peninsula,  Bacon  applied  the  torch  and  laid  Jamestown  in  ashes. 
He  then  crossed  the  York  to  drive  the  enemies  of  popular  freedom  entirely  out 
of  the  old  dominion,  but  there  he  met  a  foe  to  his  life  more  deadly  than  royalists 
or  the  Indians.  The  malaria  from  the  low  lands  infused  its  poison  into  his  veins, 
and  at  the  house  of  Dr.  Green,  in  Gloucester  county,  the  brave  republican  died, 
on  the  1st  of  October,  1676,  at  the  age  of  about  thirty-seven  years.  Berkeley 
assumed  power  immediately,  and  Bacon's  followers  were  terribly  persecuted. 
Twenty  were  hanged,  scores  were  imprisoned,  and  much  property  was  confis- 
cated. Because  the  patriots  were  unsuccessful,  this  episode  in  Virginia  history 
is  known  as  "  BACON'S  REBELLION." 


JONATHAN   TRUMBULL. 


43 


JONATHAN    TRUMBULL, 

ONE  of  the  main  pillars  of  support  upon  which  General  "Washington  relied 
during  the  "War  for  Independence,  was  Jonathan  Trumbull,  then  Governor 
of  Connecticut.  He  was  born  at  Lebanon,  Connecticut,  on  the  21st  of  June, 
1710,  and  was  graduated  at  Harvard  College  in  1727.  His  serious  mind  turned 
to  theology  as  a  profession,  and  he  commenced  its  study  with  the  Rev.  Solomon 
Williams,  of  Lebanon.  The  death  of  an  elder  brother,  who  was  engaged  in 
mercantile  business  with  his  father,  caused  Jonathan  to  change  his  intentions 
and  become  a  merchant.  When  only  twenty-three  years  of  age,  he  was  elected 
a  member  of  the  Connecticut  Assembly,  where  he  soon  became  distinguished  as 
one  of  its  most  active  committee  men.  In  1766,  he  was  elected  lieutenant- 
governor  of  the  colony,  and  became  ex-officio  chief  justice  of  the  superior  court. 
He  espoused  the  patriot  cause  very  early;  and.  in  1768,  he  took  the  bold  step 
of  refusing  to  take  the  oath,  which  enjoined  almost  unconditional  submission  to 


44  JOHN   WINTHROP. 


Parliament,  and  winch  a  ministerial  order  required.  That  step  was  popular 
with  the  people ;  and  the  following  year  he  was  chosen  governor  by  a  very  large 
majority.  His  influence  became  almost  unbounded  throughout  New  England  ; 
and  while  the  Adams's  and  Hancock  were  legislating  in  the  Continental  Con- 
gress, Governor  Trambull  was  recognized  as  the  great  leader  in  the  East.  He 
was  an  active,  self-sacrificing,  and  reliable  man  throughout  the  whole  contest ; 
and  he  had  the  proud  distinction  of  being  the  only  cojonial  governor  who,  at  the 
commencement  of  the  revolution,  espoused  the  republican  cause.  For  fourteen 
consecutive  years  he  was  elected  to  the  chief  magistracy  of  his  native  State ;  but 
when  peace  returned,  and  all  danger  seemed  over,  he  left  the  helm  forever.  He 
declined  a  reelection ;  and  at  the  age  of  seventy -three  years,  he  retired  from 
public  life.  In  August,  1785,  he  was  seized  with  a  malignant  fever,  which  de- 
stroyed his  life  on  the  17th  of  that  month.  His  son  and  grandson  both  filled 
his  chair  of  office,  the  latter  having  been  governor  in  ]  849. 

The  Marquis  de  Chastellux,  who  came  to  America  with  Rochambeau  in  1780, 
thus  speaks  of  the  personal  appearance  of  Governor  Trumbull:  "He  is  seventy 
years  old;  his  whole  life  is  consecrated  to  business,  which  he  passionately  loves, 
whether  important  or  not;  or  rather,  with  respect  to  him,  there  is  none  of  the 
latter  description.  He  has  all  the  simplicity  in  his  dress,  all  the  importance, 
and  even  pedantry,  becoming  the  great  magistrate  of  a  small  republic.  He 
brought  to  my  mind  the  burgomasters  of  Holland  in  the  time  of  the  Heinsius's 
and  Barnevelts."  He  was  greatly  beloved  by  Washington ;  and  no  name  on 
the  pages  of  our  history  appears  brighter,  as  a  pure  patriot  and  honest  man, 
than  that  of  Jonathan  Trumbull. 


JOHN    WINTHROP.- 

ONE  of  the  most  accomplished  scholars  of  the  last  century,  was  John  Winthrop, 
professor  of  mathematics  and  natural  philosophy  in  Harvard  University. 
He  was  born  in  Boston,  in  1715,  and  was  graduated  at  Harvard  when  only 
seventeen  years  of  age.  His  studies  took  a  wide  range,  and  included  theology 
and  medicine,  with  the  natural  sciences.  When  he  was  appointed  Hollis  Pro- 
fessor1 in  the  university,  he  was  considered  the  most  learned  man  in  America ; 
and  his  teaching  and  example  gave  a  powerful  impetus  to  the  study  of  the  exact 
sciences  in  this  country.  As  early  as  1740,  he  made  observations  on  the  transit 
of  Mercury,  and  published  them  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  of 
London. 

In  June,  1761,  he  went  to  St.  John's,  Newfoundland,  with  his  instruments 
and  attendants,  to  observe  the  transit  of  Venus,  that  point  being  the  most  favor- 
able, in  America,  for  such  observations.  That  passage  of  Venus  across  the  disc 
of  the  sun  had  been  looked  forward  to  with  great  interest,  for  one  hundred  and 
twenty-two  years  had  elapsed  since  a  similar  phenomenon  had  been  observed.2 
Mr.  Winthrop's  observations  were  accurate,  and  of  the  greatest  value.  They 
gave  his  name  and  that  of  Harvard  College  a  world-wide  reputation.  The  Royal 
Society  elected  him  a  member  of  that  body ;  and  the  University  at  Edinburgh 
conferred  upon  him  the  degree  of  LL.D.,  or  Doctor  of  Laws.  He  also  observed 
the  transit  of  Venus,  in  1769,3  and  the  papers  which  he  published  on  that  subject 

1.  A  professorship  liberally  endowed  by  John  Hollis.     He  founded  two  professorships  in  (hat  institu- 
tion—divinity  and  mathematics.     Mr.  Winthrop  was  professor  of  mathematics. 

2.  It  cannot  be  seen  with  the  naked  eye.    The  telescope  was  first  used  nmonp  moderns  early  in  the 
17th  century,  and  the  first  transit  of  Venus  observed  with  it,  was  on  the  6th  of  December,  IfiSt.     The 
next  was  on  the  4th  of  December,  1639.     Again,  on  the  5th  of  June,  1761,  and  the  3d  of  June,  1769.    The 
next  transit  will  take  place  on  the  8th  of  December,  1874. 

3.  See  sketch  of  David  Rittenhouse. 


JOHN   BARTRAM.  45 


procured  his  admission  to  membership  in  the  most  eminent  scientific  societies  of 
the  world. 

In  1767,  Dr.  Winthrop  published  his  Gogita  de  Cometis,  a  work  of  profound 
research,  and  of  great  value  to  the  scientific  world.  At  this  time  the  dispute 
between  the  American  colonies  and  Great  Britain  was  assuming  much  import- 
ance, and  Dr  Winthrop  engaged  zealously  in  the  cause  of  the  colonists.  Not- 
withstanding he  labored  intensely  in  the  duties  of  his  professorship,  he  engaged 
in  all  the  exciting  discussions  of  the  day,  and  was  ever  found  on  the  side  of 
human  freedom.  During  all  the  exciting  scenes  of  the  early  days  of  the  revolu- 
tion, around  Boston,  he  was  a  firm  patriot,  a  wise  counsellor,  and  efficient  pro- 
moter of  the  good  cause.  He  held  his  professorship  until  his  death,  which 
occurred  on  the  3d  of  May,  1779,  in  the  sixty -fifth  year  of  his  age. 


JOHN    BARTRAM. 

THE  men  of  science  in  Europe,  a  hundred  years  ago,  were  occasionally  startled, 
as  with  a  meteor  flash,  by  scintillations  of  great  minds  in  America ;  and 
it  was  a  hard  question  for .  them  to  solve  how  genius  could  be  fostered  into 
vigorous  life  amid  the  cool  shades  of  that  wilderness.  Yet  here  and  there  the 
evidences  of  such  genius  intruded  upon  their  stately  opinions,  and  they  were 
compelled  to  offer  the  hand  of  fellowship  to  American  brethren,  equal  in  pro- 
fundity of  knowledge  with  themselves.  Of  this  class  was  John  Bartram,  an 
eminent  botanist,  who  was  born  near  Darby,  in  Chester  county,  Pennsylvania, 
in  the  year  1701.  He  found  few  helps  to  education  in  early  life,  but  study  and 
perseverance  overcame  a  host  of  difficulties.  He  seldom  sat  down  to  a  meal  with- 
out a  book,  and  he  learned  the  classic  languages  with  great  facility.  In  the 
study  of  medicine  and  surgery  he  greatly  delighted ;  and  drawing  his  medicines 
chiefly  from  the  vegetable  kingdom,  he  practiced  successfully  among  the  poor 
of  his  neighborhood.  His  avocation  was  that  of  a  farmer,  and  his  favorite  study 
was  botany. 

Mr.  Bartram  was  the  first  American  who  conceived  the  plan  of  establishing  a 
botanic  garden  for  American  plants  and  vegetables.  He  carried  his  plan  into 
execution,  by  devoting  about  six  acres,  near  Philadelphia,  to  the  purpose.  He 
traversed  the  country  in  every  direction,  from  Canada  on  the  north  to  Florida 
on  the  south,  in  search  of  new  productions,  and  his  garden  was  enriched  and 
beautified  by  the  results  of  his  explorations.  His  philosophical  knowledge  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  learned  and  scientific  men,  at  home  and  abroad,  and 
with  these  his  intercourse  became  extensive.  He  sent  many  botanical  collec- 
tions to  Europe,  and  their  beauty,  novelty,  and  admirable  classification,  won 
universal  applause.  Literary  and  scientific  societies  of  London,  Edinburgh, 
Stockholm,  and  other  cities,  placed  his  name  among  those  of  their  honorary 
members;  and  finally,  George  the  Third  of  England  appointed  him  "American 
Botanist  to  his  Majesty."  He  held  that  honorable  position  until  his  death,  which 
occurred  in  September,  1777,  when  he  was  in  the  seventy-sixth  year  of  his  age. 
His  zeal  in  scientific  pursuits  was  unabated  till  the  last.  At  the  age  of  seventy 
years,  he  made  a  journey  in  East  Florida,  to  examine  and  collect  the  natural 
productions  of  that  region.  His  son,  William,  who  accompanied  his  father  in 
many  of  these  excursions,  published,  in  1792,  an  interesting  account  of  their 
travels  through  East  Florida,  the  Cherokee  country,  &c.  John  Bartram  lived 
and  died  an  exemplary  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends. 


46 


CHARLES   THOMSON. 


CjHARLES    THOMSON. 

OF  all  the  patriots  of  the  Revolution,  no  man  was  better  acquainted  with  the 
men  and  events  of  that  struggle,  than  Charles  Thomson,  who  was  the  per- 
manent Secretary  of  the  Continental  Congress  for  more  than  fifteen  years.  He  was 
born  in  Ireland  in  1730,  and  at  the  age  of  eleven  years  was  brought  to  America 
in  company  with  three  older  brothers.  Their  father  died  from  the  effects  of 
sea-sickness,  when  within  sight  of  the  capes  of  the  Delaware.  They  landed  at 
New  Castle,  in  Delaware,  and  had  no  other  capital  with  which  to  commence 
life  in  the  New  World,  than  strong  and  willing  hands,  and  honest  hearts.  Charles 
was  educated  at  New  London,  in  Pennsylvania,  by  Dr.  Allison,  and  became  a 
teacher  in  the  Friend's  Academy,  at  New  Castle.  He  went  to  Philadelphia, 
where  he  enjoyed  the  friendship  of  Dr.  Franklin  and  other  eminent  men.  In 
1756,  he  was  the  secretary  for  the  Delaware  Indians,  at  a  great  council  held 
with  the  white  people,  at  Easton ;  and  that  tribe  adopted  him  as  a  son,  according 
to  an  ancient  custom.  With  all  the  zeal  of  an  ardent  nature,  Thomson  espoused 
the  republican  cause ;  and  when  the  first  Continental  Congress  met,  in  Phila- 
delphia, in  September,  1774,  he  was  called  to  the  responsible  duty  of  secretary 
to  that  body.1  At  about  that  time,  he  married  Hannah  Harrison  (the  aunt  of 

1.  Watson  relates  that  Thomson  had  just  come  into  Philadelphia,  with  kis  bride,  and  was  alighting 


FRANCIS  ALLISON.  47 


President  Harrison),  whose  brother,  Benjamin,  was  one  of  the  signers  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  Year  after  year,  Mr.  Thomson  kept  the  records 
of  the  proceedings  of  Congress,  until  the  new  organization  of  the  government 
under  the  Federal  Constitution,  in  1789.  But  the  demands  of  public  business 
did  not  wean  him  from  books,  of  which  he  was  a  great  lover.  He  had  a  passion 
for  the  study  of  Greek  authors,  and  actually  translated  the  Septuagint  from  the 
original  into  English.  He  made  copious  notes  of  the  progress  of  the  Revolution, 
and  after  retiring  from  public  life,  in  1789,  he  prepared  a  History  of  his  own 
times.  But  his  sense  of  justice  and  goodness  of  heart,  would  not  permit  him  to 
publish  it ;  and  a  short  time  before  he  died,  he  destroyed  the  manuscript.  He 
gave  as  a  reason,  that  he  was  unwilling  to  blast  the  reputation  of  families  rising 
into  repute,  whose  progenitors  were  proved  to  be  unworthy  of  the  friendship  of 
good  men,  because  of  their  bad  conduct  during  the  war.  So  the  world  has  lost 
the  most  authentic  civil  history  of  the  struggle  for  independence,  ever  produced. 
Mr.  Thomson  died  on  the  16th  of  August,  1824,  when  in  the  ninety-fifth  year  of 
his  age.  He  then  resided  at  Lower  Merion,  Montgomery  county,  Pennsylvania, 
where  he  was  buried.  In  1838,  his  nephew  removed  his  remains  to  Laurel  Hill 
Cemeter}'-,  over  which  is  a  handsome  monument,  bearing  an  appropriate  inscrip- 
tion, composed  by  John  F.  Watson,  Esq.,  the  Annalist. 


FRANCIS    ALLISON, 

rpHE  early  instructors  of  great  men  ought  to  have  a  share  in  the  honors  of  their 
J-  pupils,  if,  as  faithful  teachers,  their  instructions  have  led  to  such  greatness. 
In  that  relation  to  several  of  the  men  distinguished  in  the  councils  of  the  nation 
during  our  War  for  Independence,  stands  Francis  Allison.  He  was  born  in 
Ireland  in  1705,  and  completed  his  education  at  the  University  of  Glasgow,  in 
Scotland.  At  the  age  of  thirty  years  he  emigrated  to  America,  and  having  been 
ordained  a  minister  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  he  was  chosen  pastor  of  a  flock 
at  New  London,  in  Chester  county,  Pennsylvania.  His  Christian  zeal  made 
him  yearn  for  more  workers  in  his  Master's  vineyard,  and  he  opened  a  free  school 
in  which  he  taught  many  who  expressed  themselves  desirous  of  becoming  gospel 
bearers.  About  the  year  1747,  he  was  invited  to  take  charge  of  an  academy  in 
Philadelphia,  where  he  became  instructor  of  many  youths,  who  afterward  oc- 
cupied conspicuous  public  stations.  He  had  educated  Charles  Thomson,  the 
secretary  of  the  Continental  Congress  during  the  whole  of  the  revolution  and 
several  years  afterward.  In  1755,  Dr.  Allison  was  chosen  vice-provost  of  the 
College  in  Philadelphia,  then  just  established;  and  among  his  earliest  pupils, 
was  Francis  Hopkinsori,  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
He  was  professor  of  moral  philosophy ;  and  during  these  employments  he  con- 
tinued his  ministerial  labors  as  pastor  of  the  first  Presbyterian  Church  in  Phila- 
delphia,. Dr.  Allison  died  at  Philadelphia,  on  the  28th  of  November,  1777,  at 
the  age  of  seventy-two  years. 

from  his  chaise,  when  a  messenger  from  the  delegates  in  Carpenter's  Hall  came  to  him,  and  said  they 
wanted  him  to  come  and  take  minutes  of  their  proceedings,  as  he  was  an  expert  at  such  business.  For 
his  first  year's  service,  he  received  no  pay.  So  Congress  informed  his  wife,  that  they  wished  to  com- 
pensate her  for  the  absence  of  her  husband  during  that  lime,  and  wished  her  to  name  what  kind  of  a  piece 
of  plate  she  would  like  to  receive.  She  chose  an  urn,  and  that  silver  vessel  is  yet  hi  the  family. 


48  INCREASE   MATHER. 


INCREASE    MATHER. 

AMONG-  the  most  eminent  divines  and  boldest  asserters  of  freedom  in  New 
England  during  the  angry  discussions  between  those  settlements  and  the 
imperial  governments  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  was  Increase  Mather, 
a  native  of  Dorchester,  Massachusetts,  where  he  was  bom  on  the  21st  of  Jan- 
uary, 1639.  He  was  an  exceedingly  precocious  child;  and  at  the  age  of  twelve 
years,  entered  Harvard  College  as  a  student.  He  graduated  with  honor  in  1656, 
and  the  following  year  entered  as  a  student  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  After 
an  absence  of  four  years,  he  returned  to  Boston;  and  in  1664.  was  ordained 
minister  of  the  North  Church  in  that  city,  which  connection  he  held  sixty-two 
years,  a  part  of  the  time  assisted  by  his  son,  Cotton  Mather. 

Mr.  Mather  was  chosen  to  fill  the  presidential  chair  of  Harvard  College,  after 
the  death  of  President  Oakes,  but  finally  resigned  when  the  faculty  required 
him  to  live  in  Cambridge,  and  thus  he  separated  from  his  beloved  flock  in  Bos- 
ton. After  the  English  revolution  in  1688,1  and  the  expulsion  of  governor  An- 
dros  from  New  England,2  Mr.  Mather  went  to  the  court  of  William  and  Mary, 
and  by  the  use  of  great  diplomatic  skill,  in  connection  with  Sir  William  Phipps, 
procured  the  celebrated  charter  of  1691,  for  his  native  colony.  On  the  assem- 
bling of  the  first  legislature,  under  the  new  charter,  a  vote  of  thanks  was  adopted 
by  that  body,  expressive  of  their  appreciation  of  his  faithful  public  services. 

That  frightful  delusion  known  as  "  Salem  Witchcraft"3  prevailed  about  the 
time  of  Mather's  return  to  America,  and  while  his  son,  Cotton,  was  fanning  the 
flame,  he  wrote  and  spoke  against  it.  Like  most  people  in  his  day,  he  believed 
in  the  existence  of  witches,4  yet  his  gentle  heart  and  strong  common  sense  ut- 
terly condemned  the  wicked  and  cruel  accusations  and  prosecutions  witnessed 
almost  daily.  His  pen  and  tongue  were  among  the  most  efficient  instruments 
in  the  final  suppression  of  legal  proceedings. 

During  his  presidency  of  Harvard  College,  Mr.  Mather  received  the  title  of 
Doctor  in  Divinity  from  the  faculty  of  that  institution.  His  diploma  was  the 
first  of  the  kind  issued  in  America,  and  he  was  a  worthy  recipient  of  that  honor, 
for  his  long  life  was  spent  in  the  service  of  his  divine  Master,  and  of  his  native 
country.  His  piety  was  unaffected,  and  his  benevolence  was  manifested  by  his 
giving  one-tenth  of  all  his  income  to  charitable  purposes.  At  the  time  of  his 
death,  which  occurred  on  the  23d  of  August,  1723,  at  the  age  of  eighty-four 
years,  he  was  properly  called  the  Patriarch  of  New  England. 

1.  James   Duke  of  York,  and  brother  of  Charles  the  Second,  succeeded  that  monarch  as  King  of  Great 
Britain.     He  was  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  like  all  the  other  Stuart  kings,  was  a  bad  man.     The  people  re- 
belled in  1688,  and  called  James'  son-in-law,  William,  Prince  of  Orange  and  Nassau,  to  the  throne.    He 
and  his  wife,  Mary,  James'  daughter,  ruled  jointly.     Their  profiles  appeared  together  on  the  coins,  arid 
that  fact  was  the  origin  of  the  expression  of  endearment — 

"  Cooing  and  billing, 
Like  William  and  Mary  on  a  shilling." 

2.  Andros  has  been  termed  ''The  Tyrant  of  New  England."    When  the  revolution  became  known, 
Andros  was  seized,  at  Boston,  put  on  board  a  vessel,  and,  with  fifty  of  his  political  associates,  was 
sent  to  England,  under  a  charge  of  mal-administration  of  public  affairs. 

3.  See  sketch  of  Cotton  Mather. 

4.  We  have  noticed  the  effects  of  this  delusion,  in  a  note  on  page  27.    We  may  add  here,  that  punish- 
ments for  witchcraft  were  first  sanctioned  by  the  Romish  Church  a  little  more  than  three  hundred  years 
a^o.     Henry  the  Eighth  made  the  practice  of  witchcraft  a  capital  offence;  and  professional  "  witch 
hunters"  were  common  in  Great  Britain.    Even  the  learned  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  one  of  the  brightest 
ornaments  of  the  English  judiciary,  repeatedly  tried  and  condemned  persons  accused  of  witchcraft. 


JOHN   CAREOLL.  49 


EZRA    STILES. 

A  FEW  weeks  before  the  British  under  Governor  Tryon,  entered  New  Haven, 
A.  in  Connecticut,  with  incendiary  intent,  a  diminutive  man  of  fifty  years, 
with  a  face  beaming  with  benevolent  emotions,  and  a  heart  burning  with  love 
for  his  country  and  his  race,  was  elected  President  of  Yale  College.  It  was 
Ezra  Stiles,  a  most  excellent  Christian  scholar,  who  was  born  at  North  Haven, 
on  the  15th  of  December,  1727.  He  was  educated  at  Yale,  where  he  was  grad- 
uated in  1742.  He  possessed  a  clear  intellect,  brilliant  genius,  and  remarkable 
grace  in  deportment.  He  became  a  tutor  in  the  College,  and  prepared  himself 
for  the  Christian  ministry.  Ill  health  afflicted  him,  and  with  it  came  a  state  of 
mental  suffering  which  almost  made  shipwreck  of  his  character.  He  doubted 
the  divinity  of  Christianity,  and  turned  to  the  law  as  his  chosen  profession  for 
life.  Thorough  investigations  of  the  subject  of  revealed  religion  resulted,  as 
usual,  in  convincing  him  that  the  teachings  of  Jesus  proceeded  from  the  great 
Father  of  us  all.  Under  this  conviction,  Mr.  Stiles  resumed  his  clerical  studies, 
and  became  a  shining  apostle  of  truth,  as  pastor  of  a  Congregational  society  in 
Newport,  Rhode  Island,  in  1755. 

When  the  storm  of  the  Eevolution  burst  over  Narraganset  Bay  and  vicinity, 
and  Rhode  Island  became  a  'prey  to  the  British  invaders,  Mr.  Stiles'  congregation 
was  dispersed,  and  he  preached  in  various  places,  until  the  year  1777,  when,  on 
the  resignation  of  Dr.  Daggett,  he  was  elected  President  of  Yale  College.  It 
was  a  wise  choice,  for  his  fame  as  a  classical  and  Oriental  scholar,  and  a  thorough 
disciplinarian,  had  reached  to  Europe.  He  already  corresponded  extensively 
with  leading  men  of  science  and  learning  in  the  old  world,  and  he  has  ever  been 
regarded  as  the  most  accomplished  scholar  who  has  yet  filled  the  presidential 
chair  of  "  Old  Yale."  He  occupied  that  important  seat  until  his  death,  which 
occurred  on  the  12th  of  May,  1795,  when  he  was  in  the  sixty-eighth  year  of  his 
age.  Dr.  Stiles  left  a  very  interesting  manuscript  journal,  which  has  never  been 
published.  It  is  in  the  library  of  Yale  College. 


JOHN    CARROLL. 

IT  is  a  fact  worthy  of  notice,  that  the  Maryland  charter,  granted  by  King 
Charles  the  First,  in  1632,  to  Lord  Baltimore,  a  Roman  Catholic  gentleman 
of  fortune  and  influence,  was  the  first  of  all  the  royal  patents  granted  for  settle-- 
ments  in  America,  which  guaranteed  freedom  of  thought  and  worship  to  all 
who  professed  a  belief  in  Christ.  Then  came  Baltimore's  descendant  (Leonard 
Calvert),  with  a  Roman  Catholic  colony,  and  first  settled  that  beautiful  country 
"between  North  and  South  Virginia; "(named  Maryland,  after  Henrietta  Maria, 
the  Queen  of  Charles  the  First,)  and  to  this  day,  men  of  that  faith  have  held  a 
controlling  influence  in  the  affairs  of  the  colony  and  state,  in  civil,  military, 
political,  and  religious  life.  One  of  the  most  eminent  lights  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic Church  in  Maryland,  was  John  Carroll,  a  relative  of  one  of  the  signers  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  for  many  years  a  faithful  and  highly 
esteemed  archbishop,  of  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  Baltimore.  He  was  born  on 
the  8th  of  January,  1735,  at  Upper  Marlborough,  in  Maryland,  and  was  remark- 
able for  his  docility  in  childhood,  and  activity  of  mind  during  his  earlier  years. 
At  the  age  of  thirteen  he  was  sent  to  the  college  of  St.  Omer,  in  French  Flan- 
ders, where  he  remained  until  he  was  transferred  to  the  Jesuits'  college,  at  Liege, 


50 


JOHN   CARROLL. 


six  years  afterward.  He  was  ordained  a  Jesuit  priest  in  1769,  renounced  all 
claims  to  the  estate  left  him  by  his  father,  and  then  became  a  teacher  at  St. 
Omer,  and  afterward  at  Liege.  In  1773,  the  Jesuits  were  expelled  from  France, 
and  he  was  obliged  to  abandon  his  professorship  in  the  college  at  Bruges,  to 
which  he  had  been  lately  appointed,  and  retire  to  England.  He  wrote  an  able 
vindication  of  the  Jesuits,  but  it  availed  nothing,  for  he  dared  not  print  it,  and 
the  manuscript  is  lost.  In  England,  the  accomplished  young  ecclesiastic  became 
secretary  to  the  Jesuit  Fathers  there.  He  also  accompanied  the  son  of  Lord 
Stourton  (an  English  nobleman)  on  a  continental  tour,  as  governor,  during 
which  time  he  kept  an  interesting  journal.1  On  his  return  to  England  he  be- 
came a  resident  in  Lord  Arundel's  family.  The  quarrel  between  England  and 
her  colonies  was  now  waxing  warm,  and  Mr.  Carroll  returned  to  his  native 
country,  in  1775.  He  immediately  commenced  the  duties  of  his  office  of  priest 
in  his  native  county. 

Mr.  Carroll  was  now  called  to  other  duties.     Congress  was  very  desirous  of 
winning  Canada  to  the  confederation  of  the  American  colonies  against   the 


1.  This  journal  is  published  in  the  Biography  of  Archbishop  Carroll,  written  by  his  nephew,  John 
Carroll  Brent,  and  published,  in  Baltimore,  in  1843. 


JAMES   EDWARD   OGLETHOKPE.  51 

mother  government,  or  at  least  to  obtain  its  neutrality ;  and  for  that  purpose, 
appointed  Dr.  Franklin,  Samuel  Chase,  and  Charles  Carroll,  commissioners  to 
proceed  thither,  to  confer  with  the  leading  men  there.  Father  Carroll  was  in- 
vited to  accompany  them,  because  his  sacred  office,  his  thorough  acquaintance 
with  the  French  language,  and  his  conceded  talent,  would  be  of  great  service. 
The  mission  proved  unsuccessful,  however,  and  the  devoted  priest  returned  to 
his  ministerial  labors.  Throughout  the  war,  he  was  attached  to  the  patriot 
cause,  yet  he  did  not  neglect  his  religious  duties.  His  talent  and  devotion  were 
widely  known;  and  in  1786,  he  was  appointed  vicar-general,  and  took  up  his 
residence  at  Baltimore.  At  that  time  his  church  was  in  a  languishing  state  in 
America ;  but,  like  Dr.  "White,  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  Mr.  Carroll 
labored  assiduously  for  the  growth  of  his  Zion,  and  may  be  justly  called  the 
Father  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States,  He  was  consecrated 
a  Bishop  (the  first  for  the  United  States)  in  1790;  and  the  following  year  he 
founded  the  college  at  Georgetown.  The  whole  Republic  was.  then  but  one 
diocese,  under  the  title  of  the  see  of  Baltimore.  Under  his  fostering  care,  and 
the  tolerant  principles  of  our  government,  the  church  thrived,  and  men  of  every 
creed  regarded  Bishop  Carroll  as  one  of  the  best  men  of  the  day.  Congress,  by 
unanimous  vote,  invited  him  to  deliver  an  eulogy  on  the  death  of  "Washington, 
and  that  service  was  admirably  performed  in  St.  Peter's  church,  in  Baltimore, 
on  the  22d  of  February,  1800.  In  1808,  Baltimore  was  erected  into  a  metro- 
politan see.  Four  suffragan  bishops  were  created,  and  Dr.  Carroll  became  Arch- 
bishop. "With  every  additional  duty  laid  upon  him,  the  venerable  prelate's  zeal 
seemed  to  increase,  and  he  labored  faithfully  until,  his  death,  which  occurred  on 
the  3d  of  December,  1815,  at  the  age  of  eighty  years. 


JAMES    EDWARD    OGLETHORPE. 

T^IIE  name  of  Oglethorpe  ought  to  be  held  in  grateful  remembrance  as  one  of 
the  noblest  of  the  colonizers  of  our  beautiful  land,  for  ho  came  not  hither 
for  personal  gain,  but  for  the  purpose  of  perfecting  a  benevolent  scheme  which 
his  tender  heart  and  sound  judgment  had  conceived.  He  was  born  in  Surrey, 
England,  on  the  21st  of  December,  1698.  He  was  educated  for  the  military 
profession,  and  became  an  aide-de-camp  to  the  great  Prince  Eugene.  "While  a 
representative  in  Parliament,  in  1728,  he  was  placed  upon  a  committee  to  inquire 
into  the  condition  of  imprisoned  debtors  in  Great  Britain.  His  benevolent  heart 
was  pained  at  the  recitals  of  woe  that  fell  upon  his  ears.  The  virtuous  and  the 
good  were  alike  cast  into  loathsome  prisons.  A  glorious  idea  was  awakened 
in  his  mind;  and  in  1729,  he  submitted  to  Parliament  a  plan  for  establishing  a 
military  colony  south  of  the  Savannah  river,  as  a  barrier  between  the  Carolinians 
and  the  Spaniards  in  Florida,  to  be  composed  of  the  virtuous  debtors  then  in 
prison  throughout  the  kingdom.  The  plan  was  heartily  approved.  A  royal 
charter  for  twenty-one  years  was  granted  to  a  corporation  "  in  trust  for  the  poor/' 
to  establish  a  colony  to  be  called  Georgia,  in  honor  of  King  George  the  Second, 
then  on  the  English  throne.  Oglethorpe  was  a  practical  philanthropist ;  and 
when  sufficient  money  had  been  subscribed,  and  the  emigrants  were  almost 
ready  for  departure,  he  offered  to  accompany  them  as  governor.  He  went  up 
the  Savannah  river  early  in  1733,  and  upon  Yamacraw  Bluff  he  held  a  "talk" 
with  some  of  the  Creek  chiefs;  and  there  he  founded  the  city  of  Savannah.  In 
the  prosecution  of  his  benevolent  enterprise  he  crossed  the  ocean  several  times. 
His  colony  rapidly  increased,  and  within  eight  years  twenty-five  hundred  settlers 


52  JOHN   SINGLETON   COPLEY. 

were  sent  over  by  the  trustees,  at  an  expense  of  four  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
The  jealousy  of  the  Spaniards  at  St.  Augustine  was  aroused,  and  they  menaced 
the  Georgia  colony  with  war.  Oglethorpe  promptly  built  forts  in  the  direction 
of  Florida,  and  by  skillful  military  movements,  including  some  fighting,  he  kept 
back  the  enemy,  and  secured  permanency  to  his  colony. 

Oglethorpe  took  final  leave  of  Georgia  in  1743,  and  in  1*745  was  promoted  to 
the  rank  of  Brigadier-general  in  the  British  army.  He  was  employed,  under  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland,  in  quelling  the  Scotch  rebellion  of  1745;  and  in  1747,  he 
was  promoted  to  Major-general.  When  General  Gage,  who  was  governor  of 
Massachusetts,  and  commander-in-chief  of  the  British  forces  in  America,  went 
to  England  in  1775,  the  supreme  command  in  this  country  was  offered  to  Ogle- 
thorpe. The  merciful  conditions  upon  which,  alone,  he  would  accept  the  ap- 
pointment did  not  please  the  ministry,  and  general  Howe  was  sent.  Oglethorpe 
died  at  his  seat  at  Grantham  Hall,  on  the  30th  of  June,  1785,  at  the  age  of 
eighty-seven  years. 


JOHN    SINQLETON    COPLEY. 

THE  fine  arts  were  but  little  appreciated  and  less  practiced  in  America,  pre- 
vious to  the  revolution ;  and  those  artists  of  American  birth  who  became 
famous,  obtained  their  laurel-crowns  in  England.  There  West  and  Copley  both 
gained  fortune  and  great  fame.  The  latter  was  born  in  Boston  in  1738.  He 
possessed  a  genius  for  art,  and  became  a  pupil  of  Smibert,  a  celebrated  English 
portrait  painter,  who  accompanied  Dean  Berkeley  to  Rhode  Island.  Smibert 
settled  in  Boston  when  Berkeley  returned  to  England,  where  he  married  and 
died.  Copley  was  his  only  student  who  became  proficient ;  and  after  his  master's 
death,  in  1751,  he  stood  alone  in  his  profession.  He  painted  many  full-length 
portraits,  and  a  lucrative  and  honorable  career  was  opening  before  him,  when  the 
early  storm-clouds  of  the  revolution  began  to  appear.  His  business  waned,  and, 
in  1769,  he  went  to  England.  This  circumstance,  and  the  fact  that  his  father-in- 
law  was  one  of  the  consignees  of  the  East  India  Company's  tea,  which  was 
destroyed  in  Boston  Harbor  in  1773,  caused  him  to  be  classed  among  refugeo 
loyalists.  He  was  patronized  by  Benjamin  West,  then  in  the  meridian  glory  of 
his  renown;  and  in  1770,  he  was  admitted  a  member  of  the  Royal  Academy, 
then  lately  established  under  the  auspices  of  the  young  king.  He  visited  Boston 
in  1771,  where  he  remained  several  months,  and  then  returned  to  England.  In 
1774,  he  went  to  Italy;  and  on  his  return  to  England  in  1776,  he  there  met  his 
wife  and  children,  whom  he  had  left  in  Boston.  They  had  come  with  his  father- 
in-law,  who  was  one  of  the  many  loyalists  who  fled  to  Halifax  when  Washington 
drove  the  British  from  Boston  in  the  Spring  of  that  year.  Copley  devoted  him- 
self assiduously  to  portrait  painting,  for  a  livelihood,  and  occasionally  produced 
an  historical  picture,  which  attested  his  fine  talent  for  such  composition.  On 
the  recommendation  of  West,  he  was  employed  to  paint  two  pictures:  one  for 
the  House  of  Lords,  the  other  for  the  House  of  Commons.  He  chose  for  his 
subjects,  The  Death  of  Chatham,  and  Charles  the  First  in  Parliament.  These 
established  his  fame,  and  he  secured  a  fortune  by  his  profession.  His  name-sake 
son,  who  was  born  in  Boston,  in  1772,  he  educated  for  the  bar.  It  was  a  wise 
choice,  for  he  became  as  eminent  in  the  profession  of  the  law,  as  his  father  had 
in  painting.  He  was  rapidly  rising  in  honor  when  his  father  died,  suddenly, 
on  the  25th  of  September,  1815,  at  the  age  of  seventy-seven  years.  Twelve 
3rears  later,  the  Boston-born  son  of  Copley  became  Lord  Chancellor  of  England, 
and  was  elevated  to  the  peerage,  with  the  title  of  Lord  Lyndhurst. 


WILLIAM    WHITE. 


53 


-\ 


WILLIAM    WHITE. 

BECAUSE  the  Established  Church  of  England  was  always  inseparable  from 
the  throne,  episcopacy  was  regarded  with  jealous  fear  by  the  great  body 
of  American  colonists,  and  every  attempt  to  establish  it  in  the  New  World  failed, 
until  after  the  revolution.  Episcopal  ministers  in  America  could  obtain  ordina- 
tion in  England  and  Scotland,  only,  until  1785,  when  Dr.  Seabury  was  consecrated 
a  bishop.  William  White,  the  son  of  a  sound  Philadelphia  lawyer,  was  the 
second  who  received  that  exalted  honor  in  the  church,  in  America.  He  was 
born  in  Philadelphia,  on  the  4th  of  April,  1748,  and  entered  the  college  in  that 
city,  at  the  age  of  fourteen  years.  He  had  serious  religious  impressions  at  the 
age  of  sixteen  years,  and  these  were  greatly  deepened  by  the  persuasive  elo- 
quence ofWhitefield,  in  1763.  Young  White  was  graduated  at  the  age  of 
eighteen,  and  soon  afterward  commenced  the  study  of  theology.  In  October, 
1770,  he  embarked  for  Europe,  and  with  letters  to  the  Bishop  of  London,  he 
made  application  to  that  prelate  for  deacon's  orders.  He  was  successful ;  and 
after  remaining  eighteen  months  in  England,  and  becoming  acquainted  with  Dr. 
Johnson,  Goldsmith,  and  other  men  of  letters,  he  received  priest's  orders.  He 
was  ordained  in  April,  1772,  and  in  June  embarked  for  America.  In  the  Autumn 
of  that  year,  he  was  settled  as  assistant  minister  in  the  parish  of  Christ  Church 
and  St.  Peter's,  in  Philadelphia;  and  for  sixty-four  years  he  was  a  faithful  pas- 
tor in  the  church  of  his  choice.  Nor  were  his  pious  labors  confined  to  the  ser- 


54  WILLIAM  .WHITE. 


vices  of  religion  alone :  he  was  always  foremost  in  every  benevolent  work  that 
commended  itself  to  his  judgment. 

Surveying  the  disputes  between  the  colonies  and  Great  Britain,  with  intel- 
ligent vision,  he  early  perceived  the  right ;  and  unlike  too  many  of  the  episcopal 
clergymen  at  that  time,  he  warmly  espoused  the  republican  cause.  His  only 
sister  was  the  wife  of  Robert  Morris  (the  patriot  and  financier),  and  the  outward 
pressure  of  circumstances,  as  well  as  internal  convictions,  guided  his  actions. 
He  did  not  "beat  the  ecclesiastical  drum"  before  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence was  promulgated,  but  on  the  Sunday  following,  he  ceased  officially  pray- 
ing for  the  king,  and  soon  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  United  States. 
Already  he  had  offered  up  prayers  in  the  hall  of  Congress ; '  and  when  that  body, 
at  the  close  of  1776,  convened  at  Baltimore,  he  was  chosen  one  of  its  chaplains.2 
In  that  capacity  he  continued  to  serve  until  the  seat  of  government  was  removed 
to  New  York.  When,  again,  under  the  Federal  Constitution,  the  sessions  of 
congress  were  held  in  Philadelphia,  he  acted  as  chaplain,  and  his  labors  in  that 
field  of  duty  ceased  only  when  the  seat  of  government  was  removed  to  Wash- 
ington city,  in  1801. 

Mr.  White  was  the  only  episcopal  clergyman  in  Pennsylvania  at  the  close  of 
the  revolution,  and  the  church  seemed  on  the  verge  of  dissolution.  Yet  ho 
labored  with  increasing  zeal.  He  was  called  to  the  rectory  of  Christ  Church 
and  St.  Peter's;  and  in  1783,  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  gave  him  its  first 
issued  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity.  At  about  that  time  he  proposed  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  American  Episcopal  Church,  on  such  a  basis,  that  ministers  might 
be  appointed  by  a  convention  of  clergymen  and  laymen,  without  the  aid  of 
bishops.  The  proposition  startled  many  who  could  not  conceive  of  the  existence 
of  "a  church  without  a  bishop,"  but  was  warmly  seconded  by  those  who  loved 
religion  for  its  own  sake.  The  acknowledgment  of  the  independence  of  the 
United  States,  soon  afterward,  changed  the  aspect  of  affairs.  Through  the  ex- 
ertions of  Dr.  White,  a  general  convention  of  delegates  from  the  churches,, 
met  in  Philadelphia,  in  October,  1784.  He  presided;  and  then  and  there  the 
broad  foundations  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  in  America,  were  laid.  At  the 
request  of  the  American  churches,  Drs.  White  and  Provost  proceeded  to  England 
in  the  Spring  of  1786 ;  and  on  the  4th  of  February,  1787,  they  were  consecrated 
bishops,  the  former  for  the  diocese  of  Pennsylvania,  and  the  latter  for  that  of 
New  York.  From  that  time,  episcopal  consecration  in  the  United  States  was 
performed  at  home ;  and  from  Bishop  White,  nearly  all  of  the  American  prelates, 
consecrated  during  his  life,  received  the  sacred  office.  For  about  thirty  years 
he  performed  the  duties  of  his  episcopate  without  assistance;  but  in  1827,  the 
diocese  of  Pennsylvania  becoming  very  extensive,  and  as  the  infirmities  of  ago 
were  pressing  hard  upon  the  venerable  prelate,  an  assistant  bishop  was  elected. 
Yet  he  continued  his  labors  until  the  last,  as  presiding  bishop  of  the  church  in 
the  United  States.  In  1835,  when  the  church  sent  missionaries  to  China,  ho 
prepared  instructions  for  them ;  and  that  paper  shows  that  his  mental  vigor  was 
unimpaired,  although  the  hand  that  wrote  it  was  eighty-eight  years  old.  It  was 
among  the  last  official  labors  of  his  long  and  useful  life.  In  June,  the  following 
year,  that  devoted  patriarch  preached  his  last  sermon;  and  on  the  17th  of  tho 
next  month,  his  spirit  ascended  to  the  New  Jerusalem.  In  his  writings,  and  in 
his  example,  Bishop  White  still  lives,  and  the  church  yet  feels  his  conservative 
influence. 

1.  It  has  been  erroneously  stated  that  he  was  the  first  chaplain  of  the  Continental  Congress.    That 
honor  belongs  to  Rev.  Jacob  Duche. 

2.  The  other  was  Rev.  Patrick  Allison,  minister  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Baltimore.    They  were 
chosen  on  the  23d  of  December,  1776. 


GEORGE   WASHINGTON.  55 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON. 

FIRST  IN  WAR — FIRST  IN  PEACE — FIRST  IN  THE  HEARTS  OF  HIS  COUNTRYMEN 
— was  a  just  sentiment  uttered  half  a  century  ago  by  the  foster-son1  of  the 
Great  Patriot,  when  speaking  of  the  character  of  his  noble  guardian.  And  the 
hand  of  that  son  was  the  first  to  erect  a  monumental  stone  in  memory  of  The 
Father  of  his  Country,  upon  which  was  inscribed:  HERE,  THE  HTH  OF  FEBRU- 
ARY [0.  S.],  1732,  GEORGE  WASHINGTON  WAS  BORN.  That  stone  yet  lies  on  the 
site  of  his  birth-place,  in  Westmoreland  county,  Virginia,  near  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac.  The  calendar  having  been  changed,2  we  celebrate  his  birth-day  on 
the  22d  of  February. 

George  Washington  was  descended  from  an  old  and  titled  family  in  Lan- 
cashire, England,  and  was  the  eldest  child  of  his  father,  by  Mary  Ball,  his  second 
wife.  He  died  when  George  was  little  more  than  ten  years  of  age,  and  the 
guidance  of  the  future  Leader,  through  the  dangers  of  youthhood,  devolved  upon 
his  mother.  She  was  fitted  for  the  service ;  and  during  his  eventful  life,  Wash- 
ington regarded  the  early  training  of  his  mother  with  the  deepest  gratitude. 
He  received  a  common  English  education,  and  upon  that,  a  naturally  thoughtful 
and  right-conditioned  mind,  laid  the  foundation  of  future  greatness.  Truth  and 
justice  were  the  cardinal  virtues  of  his  character.3  He  was  always  beloved  by 
his  young  companions,  and  was  always  chosen  their  leader  in  military  plays, 
At  the  age  of  fourteen  years,  he  wished  to  enter  the  navy,  but  yielded  to  the 
discouraging  persuasions  of  his  mother;  and  when  he  was  seventeen  years  old, 
he  was  one  of  the  most  accomplished  land  surveyors  in  Virginia.  In  the  forest 
rambles  incident  to  his  profession,  ho  learned  much  of  the  topography  of  the 
country,  habits  of  the  Indians,  and  life  in  the  camp.  These  were  stern  but 
useful  lessons  of  great  value  in  his  future  life. 

Young  Washington  was  appointed  one  of  the  adjutants-general  of  his  state  at 
the  age  of  nineteen,  but  soon  resigned  his  commission  to  accompany  an  invalid 
half-brother  to  the  West  Indies.  Two  years  later,  when  the  French  began  to 
build  forts  southward  of  Lake  Erie,  he  was  sent  by  the  royal  governor  of  Vir- 
ginia, to  demand  a  cessation  of  such  hostile  movements.  He  performed  the 
delicate  mission  with  great  credit ;  and  so  highly  were  his  services  esteemed, 
that  when,  in  1755,  Braddock  came  to  drive  the  French  from  the  vicinity  of  the 
Ohio,  Washington  was  chosen  his  principal  aid.  The  young  Leader  had  already 

1.  George  Washington  Parke  Custis,  grandson  of  Mrs.  Washington,  and  adopted  son  of  the  distin- 
guished patriot. 

2.  In  consequence  of  the  difference  between  the  old  Roman  year  and  the  true  solar  year,  of  a  little 
more  than  eleven  minutes,  the  astronomical  equinox  fell  back  that  amount  of  time,  each  annual  cycle, 
toward  the  beginning  of  the  year.     It  fell  on  the  21st  of  March,  at  the  time  of  the  council  of  Nice,  in 
323.     Pope  Gregory  the  Thirteenth  reformed  the  calendar  in  1582  (when  the  equinox  fell  on  the  llth  of 
March,)  by  suppressing  ten  days  in  the  calendar,  ar.d  thus   restoring  the  equinox  to  the  21st  of  March. 
The  Protestant  states  of  Europe  adhered  to  the  old  calendar,  until  1700  ;  and  popular  prejudice  in  Eng- 
land opposed  the  alterations,  until  1752,  when  the  Julian  calendar,  called  Old  Style,  was  abolished  by 
Parliament.     The  retrogression  since  Gregory's  lime  made  it  necessary  to  drop  11  days,  instead  of  ten. 
Now  the  difference  is  about  twelve  days,  so  that  Washington's  birth-day,  according  to  the  New  Style,  is 
on  the  23d  of  February. 

3.  Young  Washington  was  playing  in  a  field  one  day  with  another  boy,  when  he  leaped  upon  an  un- 
tatnel  colt  belonging  to  his  mother.     The  frightened  animal  used  such  great  exertions  to  get  rid  of  his 
rider,  that  he  burst  a  blood  vessel  and  died.     George  went  immediately  to  his  mother,  and  gave  her  a 
truthful  relation  of  all  that  had  happened.     This  is  a  noble  example  for  all  boys. 


50  GEORGE   WASHINGTON. 

been  in  that  wilderness  at  the  head  of  a  military  expedition,  and  performed  his 
duty  so  well,  that  he  was  publicly  thanked  by  the  Virginia  legislature.  Brad- 
dock  was  defeated  and  killed,  and  his  whole  army  escaped  utter  destruction  only 
through  the  skill  and  valor  of  Colonel  Washington,  in  directing  their  retreat.1 
He  continued  in  active  military  service  most  of  the  time,  until  the  close  of  1758, 
when  he  resigned  his  commission,  and  retired  to  private  life. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-seven  years,  Washington  married  the  beautiful  Martha 
Custis,  the  young  widow  of  a  wealthy  Virginia  planter,  and  they  took  up  their 
abode  at  Mount  Vernon,  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  an  estate  left  him  by  his 
half-brother.  There  he  quietly  pursued  the  business  of  a  farmer  until  the  Spring 
of  17  74,  when  he  was  chosen  to  fill  a  seat  in  the  Virginia  legislature.  The 
storm  of  the  great  revolution  was  then  gathering ;  and  toward  the  close  of  Summer 
he  was  elected  a  delegate  to  the  first  CONTINENTAL  CONGRESS,  which  assembled 
at  Philadelphia,  in  September.  He  was  a  delegate  the  following  year,  when  the 
storm  burst  on  Bunker  Hill,  after  the  first  lightning  flash  at  Lexington ;  and  by 
the  unanimous  voice  of  his  compatriots  he  was  chosen  commander-in-chief  of 
the  army  of  freemen  which  had  gathered  spontaneously  around  Boston. 

For  eight  long  years  Washington  directed  the  feeble  armies  of  the  revolted 
colonies,  in  their  struggle  for  independence.  That  was  a  terrible  ordeal  through 
which  the  people  of  America  passed !  During  the  night  of  gloom  which  brooded 
over  the  hopes  of  the  patriots  from  the  British  invasion  of  New  York,  until  the 
capture  of  Cornwallis,  he  was  the  lode-star  of  their  hopes.  And  when  the 
blessed  morning  of  Peace  dawned  at  Yorktown,  and  the  last  hoof  of  the  oppress- 
or had  left  our  shores,  Washington  was  hailed  as  the  Deliverer  of  his  people ; 
and  he  was  regarded  by  the  aspirants  for  freedom  in  the  eastern  hemisphere  as 
the  brilliant  day-star  of  promise  to  future  generations. 

During  all  the  national  perplexities  after  the  return  of  peace,  incident  to 
financial  embarrassments  and  an  imperfect  system  of  government,  Washington 
was  regarded,  still,  as  the  public  leader ;  and  when  a  convention  assembled  to 
modify  the  existing  government,  he  was  chosen  to  preside  over  their  delibera- 
tions. And  again,  when  the  labors  of  that  convention  resulted  in  the  formation 
of  our  Federal  Constitution,  and  a  president  of  the  United  States  was  to  bo 
chosen,  according  to  its  provisions,  his  countrymen,  with  unanimous  voice,  called 
him  to  the  highest  place  of  honor  in  the  gift  of  a  free  people. 

Washington  presided  over  the  affairs  of  the  new  Republic  for  eight  years,  and 
those  the  most  eventful  in  its  history.  A  new  government  had  to  be  organized 
without  any  existing  model,  and  new  theories  of  government  were  to  bo  put  in 
practice  for  the  first  time.  The  domestic  and  foreign  policy  of  the  country  had 
to  be  settled  by  legislation  and  diplomacy,  and  many  exciting  questions  had  to 
be  met  and  answered.  To  guide  the  ship  of  state  through  the  rocks  and  quick- 
sands of  all  these  difficulties  required  great  executive  skill  and  wisdom.  Wash- 
ington possessed  both ;  and  he  retired  from  the  theatre  of  public  life  without  the 
least  stain  of  reproach  upon  his  judgment  or  his  intentions. 

The  great  Patriot  and  Sage  enjoyed  the  repose  of  domestic  life,  at  Mount 
Vernon,  in  the  midst  of  an  affectionate  family  and  the  almost  daily  congratula- 
tions of  visitors,  for  almost  three  years,  when  the  effects  of  a  heavy  cold  closed 
his  brilliant  career,  in  death.  He  ascended  to  the  bosom  of  his  God  on  the  14th 
of  December,  1799,  when  almost  sixty-eight  years  of  age.2 

1.  Braddock  persisted  in  fighting  the  Indians  according  to  the  military  tactics  of  Europe  ;  and  when 
Washington  modestly  suggested  the  policy  of  adopting  the  Indian  method  of  warfare,  it  is  said  that 
Braddock  haughtily  answered,  "  What !  a  provincial  buskin  teach  a  British  general  how  to  fight !" 

2.  See  the  Frontispiece.    On  the  left,  below  the  portrait,  is  his  birth-place ;  on  the  right,  his  tomh. 
liberty  and  Justice  are  supporters,  in  the  midst  of  Plenty,  and  surmounting  Fame  is  proclaiming  his 
deeds. 


FRANCIS   HOPKINSON. 


57 


FRANCIS    HOPKINSON. 

THE  bud  of  a  keen  wit  and  zealous  patriot  appeared  when,  at  almost  midnight 
on  the  3d  of  September,  1738,  Francis  Hopkinson  was  born  in  the  city  of 
Philadelphia.  His  father  was  a  fine  scholar,  and  an  intimate  friend  of  Dr. 
Franklin ;  his  mother  was  a  woman  of  great  refinement,  and  niece  of  the  Bishop 
of  "Worcester.  They  came  from  England  immediately  after  their  marriage. 
settled  in  Philadelphia,  and  died  there.  When  Francis  was  fourteen  years  oldj 
his  mother  was  left  a  widow  with  a  large  family  of  children.  She  discharged 
the  holy  duties  of  her  station  with  fidelity  and  success. 

Francis  Hopkinson  was  the  first  scholar  and  first  graduate  of  the  College  of 
Philadelphia,  of  which  his  father  was  one  of  the  founders.  He  was  an  honor  to 
the  institution.  The  profession  of  the  law  was  his  choice,  and  he  studied  in  the 
office  of  Benjamin  Chew,  afterward  the  eminent  chief  justice  of  Pennsylvania. 
He  was  fond  of  literary  and  scientific  pursuits,  and  for  the  purpose  of  expanding 
and  strengthening  his  faculties  by  contact  with  eminent  men,  he  went  to  Eng- 
land, and  resided  with  the  Bishop  of  Worcester,  about  two  years.  Soon  after 
his  return,  in  1768,  he  married  Ann  Borden,  the  accomplished  daughter  of  a 
wealthy  gentleman,  the  founder  of  Bordentown,  New  Jersey ;  and  that  became 
his  place  of  residence.  His  country  was  then  agitated  by  the  premonitions  of 
the  approaching  Revolution,  and  his  active  mind  often  found  powerful  expression 

3* 


58  THOMAS   HUTCHINSON. 

through  his  pen.  His  first  publication,  of  moment,  was  a  small  pamphlet  en- 
titled, A  Pretty  Story,  which  is  said  to  have  had  great  influence  on  the  public 
mind,  in  quickening  its  perceptions  of  the  true  relations  existing  between  Great 
Britain  and  her  colonies.  It  abounds  with  fine  specimens  of  imagination,  com- 
position, and  elegant  wit.  So  in  his  conversation ;  it  was  ever  marked  by  great 
refinement.  He  was  never  known  to  use  a  profane  word,  or  utter  an  expression 
that  would  make  a  lady  blush. 

When  the  colonies  had  drawn  the  sword  and  cast  away  the  scabbard,  Mr. 
Hopkinson,  who  had  been  an  unflinching  patriot  from  the  beginning,  was  chosen 
a  delegate  to  represent  New  Jersey  in  the  Continental  Congress.  In  that  ca- 
pacity he  signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  soon  afterward  received 
the  commission  of  Judge  of  Admiralty,  for  Pennsylvania.  While  in  that  station 
he  wrote  that  exceedingly  witty  poem,  entitled  The  Battle  of  the  Kegs.1 

When  the  Federal  Constitution  was  before  the  people.  Judge  Hopkinson  be- 
came one  of  its  most  zealous  and  eloquent  supporters,  with  tongue  and  pen ;  and 
in  1790,  President  Washington  appointed  him  a  judge  of  the  United  States 
court,  for  the  district  of  Pennsylvania,  under  the  new  organization  of  the  judi- 
ciary. He  did  not  bear  the  ermine  and  its  honors  long,  for  on  the  9th  of  May, 
1791,  he  was  suddenly  smitten  with  epilepsy,  which  terminated  his  life  in  the 
course  of  a  few  hours. 

Mr.  Hopkinson's  genius  was  versatile.  He  was  proficient  in  the  knowledge 
of  music,  mathematics,  mechanics,  and  chemistry.  As  a  satirical  writer  he  has 
few  peers ;  and  he  held  a  front  rank  as  a  statesman  and  jurist.  His  works, 
arranged  by  himself,  were  published  in  three  volumes,  after  his  death,  and  are 
now  exceedingly  rare. 


THOMAS    HUTCHINSON. 

MANY  good  men,  whose  actions  have  been  governed  by  the  purest  and  loftiest 
motives,  have  been  made  the  targets  of  scorn  by  partisan  writers ;  and  it 
is  difficult,  when  perusing  the  pages  of  history,  to  judge  correctly  of  the  real 
characters  of  the  prominent  men  whose  actions  make  up  the  sum  of  the  record. 
Thomas  Hutchinson,  Governor  of  Massachusetts  during  some  of  the  most  excit- 
ing scenes  of  the  early  years  of  the  revolutionary  struggle,  is  generally  regarded 
with  contempt  and  indignation  by  readers  of  American  history,  because,  like 
thousands  of  conscientious  men,  he  chose  the  royal  side  in  the  controversy.  Ho 
was  born  in  Massachusetts,  in  1711,  and  was  graduated  at  Harvard  College  in 
1727.  His  father  had  been  a  public  man,  and  Thomas  studied  English  constitu- 
tional law,  with  the  intention  of  becoming  a  statesman.  He  first  embarked  in 
commercial  pursuits,  however,  but  did  not  succeed.  For  ten  consecutive  years 
he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Assembly,  and  he  was  Speaker 
of  that  body  for  three  years.  In  1752,  he  succeeded  his  uncle  as  judge  of  pro- 
bate; and  from  1749  until  1756,  he  was  a  member  of  the  governor's  council. 
In  1758,  he  was  elected  lieutenant-governor  of  the  province,  and  held  that  office 
until  1771,  when  he  was  appointed  governor.  In  the  meanwhile  he  had  held 
the  office  of  phief  justice,  after  the  death  of  Judge  Sewall,  in  1760.  That  office 

1.  A  man,  named  Bushnell,  of  Conencticut,  invented  a  submarine  explosive  apparatus,  by  which 
ships  might  be  blown  up.  An  ineffectual  attempt  was  made  to  blow  up  the  Eagle,  General  Howe's  flag- 
ship, in  the  harbor  of  New  York,  in  1776.  In  1778,  while  the  British  had  possession  of  Philadelphia, 
and  several  of  their  ships  were  lying  in  the  Delaware,  some  Whigs  at  Bordentown  prepared  several  kegs 
of  powder  with  a  similar  machine,  and  sent  them  floating  down  the  current  of  the  river,  toward  the 
British  shipping.  They  caused  great  alarm,  and  in  commemoration  of  that  event  the  Battle  of  the  Kegs 
was  written.  The  author's  son,  Joseph,  wrote  the  popular  national  song,  Hail  Columbia. 


NATHANIEL   GREENE.  59 

had  been  promised  to  the  elder  Otis,  and  the  disappointment  gave  a  keener 
point  to  the  opposition  of  the  younger  Otis  to  the  person  and  administration  of 
Hutchinson,  when  the  dispute  between  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies  was  pro- 
gressing. Other  things  had  made  Hutchinson  unpopular  with  many  of  the  people. 
In  1748,  he  was  chiefly  instrumental  in  abolishing  the  paper  currency  of  the 
colony,  and  substituting  gold  and  silver  therefor ;  and  he  favored  the  law  granting 
writs  of  assistance,  or  general  search-warrants  for  contraband  goods,  by  which  no 
man's  house  was  safe  from  prying  officials.  He  was  also  active,  with  Governor 
Bernard,  in  bringing  troops  to  Boston,  in  1*768,  to  awe  the  people;  and  much  of 
the  odium  of  the  massacre  in  Boston,  in  March,  1770,  was  cast  upon  him.1  These 
things  created  a  strong  popular  feeling  against  him;  and  when,  in  1772,  certain 
letters  which  he  had  written  to  a  former  member  of  Parliament,  were  sent  back 
from  England  to  Boston  by  Dr.  Franklin,  and  published,  in  which  he  gave 
advice,  in  disparagement  of  popular  liberty  in  America,  the  people  could  scarcely 
be  restrained  from  manifesting  their  indignation  by  inflicting  personal  violence 
upon  him.  He  was  compelled  to  leave  the  country  in  1774,  when  he  went  to 
England.  He  died  at  Brompton,  in  that  realm,  on  the  3d  of  June,  1780,  at  the 
age  of  sixty-nine  years.  However  much  Governor  Hutchinson  sinned  against 
our  republican  faith,  his  memory  deserves  to  be  revered  for  his  faithful  labors  in 
the  field  of  historical  research.  He  prepared,  with  great  care,  a  History  of 
Massachusetts,  from  the  earliest  settlements  in  1628,  until  1760.  The  first  volume 
was  published  in  1760,  and  the  second  in  1767.  He  had  also  prepared  much 
more  historical  matter  concerning  the  colony ;  and  his  unpublished  manuscripts 
were  procured  for  publication  in  this  country,  thirty  years  after  his  death.  His 
History  of  Massachusetts  is  standard  authority. 


NATHANIEL    OREENE. 

THIS  ablest  of  "Washington's  generals  was  the  son  of  an  anchor-smith  at  "War- 
wick, Rhode  Island,  where  the  future  hero  was  born,  in  1740.  Nathaniel 
was  trained  to  his  father's  business,  and  was  taught  to  love  God  and  his  neigh- 
bor by  his  pious  Quaker  mother.  "While  yet  a  boy,  he  acquired  some  knowledge 
of  Latin ;  and  before  his  apprenticeship  expired,  his  little  earnings,  judiciously 
used,  had  furnished  him  with  a  small  library.  Contrary  to  Quaker  teachings, 
he  loved  the  military  art,  read  much  of  military  history  with  delight,  and  when 
the  clang  of  arms  came  from  Lexington  and  Concord,  he  went  forth  to  act  mili- 
tary history,  in  a  nobler  cause  than  warriors  usually  engage  in.  At  the  age  of 
twenty-one  years,  he  had  been  called  to  a  seat  in  the  Rhode  Island  legislature ; 
at  the  age  of  thirty -five  years,  he  led  to  Roxbury,  after  the  affair  at  Lexington, 
the  three  regiments  which  formed  the  army  of  observation,  raised  by  his  State 
for  the  defence  of  the  country.  The  Quakers  disowned  him,  and  "Washington 
and  his  country  adopted  him.  His  State  had  made  him  a  Brigadier ;  Congress 
appointed  him  a  Major-general  in  the  Continental  army.  He  was  sick  during 
the  battle  on  Long  Island,  in  August,  1776,  but  was  in  the  engagements  at 
Trenton,  Princeton,  Brandywine,  and  Germantown,  during  the  next  fifteen 
months.  He  was  honored  with  the  important  office  of  Quarter-master  general 
in  March,  1778,  and  in  June  he  fought  gallantly  on  the  plains  of  Monmouth. 
la  the  Autumn  of  1780,  he  took  command  of  the  remnant  of  the  southern  army 

1.  A  dispute  between  some  of  the  people  and  the  troops  occurred.  A  large  crowd  gathered  in  the 
streets  ;  the  troops  were  drawn  up  in  line,  and  after  being  buffeted  with  words  and  missiles,  for  some 
time,  some  of  the  soldiers  fired.  Three  persons  in  the  crowd  were  killed.  It  was  made  the  occasion 
of  great  indignation  against  the  troops  and  government  officials. 


60 


NATHANIEL   GREENE. 


which  had  been  defeated  and  dispersed  at  Camden,  under  General  Gates ;  and 
before  the  close  of  1781,  he  had  driven  the  British  from  every  strong  interior 
position,  in  the  South,  and  confined  them  to  the  cities  of  Charleston  and  Savan- 
nah. During  that  year,  his  famous  retreat  before  Lord  Cornwallis,  across  North 
Carolina,  and  the  battles  at  Guilford,  Camden,  Ninety-Six,  and  Eutaw  Springs, 
were  achieved ;  and  the  following  year  he  marched  victoriously  into  Charleston, 
amid  the  booming  of  cannons,  the  waving  of  handkerchiefs  in  fair  hands  from 
balconies  and  windows,  and  shouts  of  welcome !  from  crowds  of  liberated  free- 
men. At  the  same  hour,  the  white  sails  of  a  British  fleet,  bearing  the  last  hos- 
tile foot  from  our  shores,  south  of  New  York,  were  glistening  in  the  evening 
sun.  And  yet  the  last  resting-place,  on  earth,  of  this  patriot  and  hero,  is  un- 
known to  this  generation.  The  grateful  Georgians  gave  him  a  fine  estate  in 
that  land  of  the  orange  and  palm  ;l  and  while  there,  in  June,  1786,  he  was  over- 
come by  the  heat  of  the  sun,  fell  and  expired.  His  remains  were  buried  in  a 
vault  in  Savannah,  but  there  is  nothing  to  distinguish  them  from  the  common 

1.  In  testimony  of  the  grateful  appreciation  of  his  services  in  the  South,  the  Legislature  of  South 
Carolina  voted  him  fifty  thousand  dollars ;  that  of  North  Carolina,  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  ;  and 
of  Georgia,  twenty-four  thousand  acres  of  land,  in  the  vicinity  of  Savannah. 


ZABDIEL   BOYLSTON.  61 

relics  of  mortality  around  them.  Even  the  particular  vault  wherein  they  were 
deposited  is  unknown,  and  they  are  lost  to  humanity  forever.  His  memory, 
however,  shall  bloom,  ever  fresh,  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,  and  his  fame, 
less  perishable  than  brass  or  marble,  will  endure  while  freedom  has  a  temple  or 
a  worshipper.  Congress  ordered  a  monument  to  be  erected  to  his  memory  at 
the  seat  of  the  Federal  Government,  but  the  stone  for  it  is  yet  in  the  quarry.1 


ZABDIEL    BOYLSTON. 

|  NOCULATION"  for  the  small-pox,  so  as  to  ward  off  the  violence  of  that  foul 
1  and  fatal  disease,  was  first  practiced  in  England,  in  1721,  by  Lady  Mary 
Wortley  Montague,  whose  son  had  been  successfully  treated,  in  that  way,  at 
Constantinople.  She  tried  the  experiment  upon  seven  capital  convicts,  and  was 
successful.  At  about  the  same  time,  and  while  ignorant  of  the  fact  of  Lady 
Mary's  operations,  Doctor  Boylston  introduced  the  practice  at  Boston.2  He  was 
a  man  of  courage  and  benevolence ;  a  native  of  Brookline,  Massachusetts,  where 
he  was  born  in  1680.  He  studied  medicine  and  surgery  at  Boston,  and  soon 
became  an  eminent  practitioner  and  man  of  fortune. 

Dr.  Boylston's  attention  was  first  called  to  the  subject  of  inoculation  by  Dr. 
Cotton  Mather,  who  had  read  an  account  of  its  successful  practice  at  Smyrna, 
in  the  East.  The  small-pox  was  then  raging  with  fearful  fatality  in  Boston ; 
but  of  all  the  physicians  there,  Boylston  was  the  only  one  who  possessed  suf- 
ficient courage  to  try  the  experiment.  On  the  26th  of  June,  I1?  21,  he  inocu- 
lated his  little  son,  aged  six  years,  and  two  servants.  He  was  successful,  and 
began  to  enlarge  the  practice.  The  other  physicians  opposed  him,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  next  month  the  selectmen  of  Boston  forbade  its  practice.  At  that 
moment  six  venerable  clergymen  of  the  city  gave  their  influence  in  its  favor, 
and  benevolence  and  good  sense  triumphed  over  prejudice  and  ignorance.  In 
the  course  of  a  year  he  inoculated  two  hundred  and  forty-seven  persons  in 
Boston ;  and  of  two  hundred  and  eighty-six  inoculated  by  himself  and  physi- 
cians in  neighboring  towns,  only  six  died,  while  of  five  thousand  seven  hundred 
and  fifty -nine  persons  who  had  the  small-pox  the  natural  way,  eight  hundred  and 
forty-four  died.  Notwithstanding  this  triumphant  vindication  of  the  utility  of 
the  practice,  Dr.  Boylston  was  mercilessly  persecuted  by  other  physicians ;  and 
the  common  people  became  so  exasperated  against  him,  that  it  was  unsafe  for  him 
to  be  seen  out  after  dark.  They  went  so  far,  at  one  time,  as  to  parade  the  streets 
with  halters,  declaring  their  intention  to  hang  him,3  and  those  who  submitted 
to  his  practice  were  grossly  insulted.  Dr.  Mather  and  others  adhered  to  him, 
and  he  triumphed. 

Dr.  Boylston  went  to  England  in  1725.  The  fame  of  his  practice  preceded 
him,  and  he  was  honored  with  membership  in  the  Royal  Society.  When  he 
returned  home,  prejudice  had  given  way  to  common  sense  ;  and  to  the  end  of 

1.  At  West  Point  are  two  brass  cannons,  captured  from  the  British,  and  presented  to  General  Greene. 
On  them  is  the  following  inscription  :  "Taken  from  the  British  army,  and  presented,  by  order  of  the 
United  States,  in  Congress  assembled,  to  Major-general  Greene,  as  a  monument  of  ihcir  high  sense  of 
the  wisdom,  fortitude,  and  military  talents  which  distinguished  his  command  in  the  Southern  Depart- 
ment, and  of  the  eminent  services  which,  amid  complicated  dangers  and  difficulties,  he  performed  for 
his  country.    October  ye  18th,  1783." 

2.  The  safer  preventive  practice  of  vaccination,  now  universally  used  instead  of  inoculation,  was 
discovered  by  Edward  Jenner  in  1776.     Among  those  who  first  introduced  the  new  practice  into  this 
country,  was  Doctor  Eneas  Munson,  of  Connecticut.     He  used  vaccination  in  1782. 

3.  His  alleged  offence  was  the  spreading  of  a  loathsome  disease  throughout  the  community  ;  and  it 
was  also  argued  that  the  small-pox  being  a  judgment  sent  upon  the  people  for  their  sins,  any  endeavor 
Jo  avert  the  blow  would  offend  God  still  more  ! 


62  WILLIAM   BRADFORD. 

his  days  he  stood  at  the  head  of  his  profession  in  America.  Bodily  infirmity 
induced  him  to  retire  to  his  patrimonial  estate  at  Brookline,  where  he  engaged 
in  literary  and  scientific  pursuits  in  connection  with  agriculture.  He  had  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  inoculation  universally  practiced.  On  the  1st  of  March, 
1766,  he  said  to  his  friends,  "My  work  in  this  world  is  done,  and  my  hopes  of 
futurity  are  brightening;"  and  then  closed  his  eyes  forever. 


WILLIAM    BRADFORD. 

"  T^HANK  God  there  are  no  free  schools  in  this  province,  nor  printing  press ; 

JL  and  I  hope  we  shall  not  have  for  these  hundred  years,"  said  Berkeley, 
the  royal  governor  of  Virginia,  in  1671.  His  hope  was  almost  realized  in  respect 
to  the  press ;  but  in  other  colonies  that  mighty  worker,  then  in  its  childhood, 
began  its  labors  early.  More  than  thirty  years  before  the  utterance  of  these 
sentiments,  a  press  had  been  established  at  Cambridge,  Massachusetts;  and 
sixteen  years  afterward,  William  Bradford,  who  came  to  America  with  William 
Penn,  set  up  a  press  and  printed  an  Almanac  at  Philadelphia,  or  in  its  imme- 
diate vicinity. 

Mr.  Bradford  was  a  Quaker,  and  native  of  Leicestershire,  England.  He  learned 
the  printer's  trade  in  London,  and  married  the  daughter  of  his  master,  through 
whom  he  became  acquainted  with  George  Fox,  the  founder  of  his  sect.1  The 
Almanac  printed  by  him  was  for  the  year  1687,  and  was  made  at  Burlington, 
New  Jersey.  He  printed  several  controversial  pamphlets,  and  among  them  was 
one  by  George  Keith  against  some  of  the  Quakers  of  Philadelphia.  It  was 
deemed  seditious,  and  Keith  and  Bradford  were  arrested  and  imprisoned,  in  1692. 
They  were  tried  and  acquitted ;  but  having  incurred  the  ill-will  of  the  dominant 
party  of  Quakers,  Bradford  took  up  his  residence  in  New  York  the  following  year, 
where  he  was  appointed  government  printer,  and  for  a  period  of  about  thirty 
years  he  was  the  only  practitioner  of  his  art  in  that  province.  His  first  produc- 
tion was  a  folio  volume  of  laws  of  the  province. 

In  the  Autumn  of  1725,  Bradford  commenced  the  publication  of  the  first 
newspaper  printed  in  that  colony,  which  he  called  The  New  York  Gazette.  John 
Peter  Zenger,  one  of  his  apprentices,  became  a  business  competitor  in  1726;  and 
in  1733  he,  too,  published  a  newspaper,  called  The  New  York  Weekly  Journal. 
Much  enmity  existed  between  them,  and  their  respective  papers  became  the 
organs  of  the  two  political  parties  then  existing  in  New  York.  Bradford  al- 
ways supported  the  government  party,  while  Zenger  spoke  boldly  for  the 
people. 

Bradford  had  two  sons,  Andrew  and  William,  whom  he  instructed  in  his  art,  and 
made  them  partners  in  business.  He  owned  a  paper  mill  at  Elizabethtown,  New 
Jersey,  in  1728,  which  is  believed  to  have  been  the  first  one  established  in  America. 
At  the  age  of  seventy  years,  he  retired  from  business,  and  lived  with  his  son, 
Andrew,  until  his  death,  which  occurred  on  the  23d  of  May,  1752,  when  he  was 
ninety-four  years  of  age.  He  had  been  printer  to  the  government  more  than 
fifty  years ;  and  during  his  long  life  he  had  never  been  seriously  sick.  At  the 
time  of  his  death,  it  was  announced  in  his  Gazette,  that  "being  quite  worn  out 
with  old  age  and  labor,  his  lamp  of  life  went  out  for  want  of  oil." 

1.  Fox  promulgated  his  peculiar  tenets  about  1650.  He  boldly  condemned  sin  in  high  places  ;  and  it 
was  while  admonishing  Justice  Bennet,  of  Derby,  that  he  was  first  called  a  Quaker,  because  he  told 
that  magistrate  to  quake  and  tremble  at  the  word  of  the  Lord.  Fox  came  to  America  in  1670. 


LINDLEY   MUREAY. 


63 


LINDLEY    MURRAY. 

"  MURRAY'S  GRAMMAR  "  is  as  widely  known  as  the  English  language,  and 
If-L  forms  a  part  of  the  vision  of  school-days  which  comes  up  occasionally 
before  the  memory  of  every  educated  American.  It  emanated  from  an  invalid, 
confined  for  sixteen  years  in  a  sick  room.  He  was  the  son  of  an  eminent  Qua- 
ker merchant  in  the  city  of  New  York,  but  was  born  at  Swetara,  near  Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania,  in  1*745,  while  his  father  was  engaged  in  the  vocation  of  a  miller, 
there. 

"While  yet  a  small  boy,  Lindley  Murray  was  placed  in  a  school  in  Philadelphia, 
where  he  was  thoroughly  instructed  in  the  English  branches  of  education,  by 
Ebenezer  Kinnersly,  a  friend  and  correspondent  of  Dr.  Franklin.  He  accom- 
panied his  father  to  New  York,  and  was  eagerly  engaged  in  the  study  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  languages,  preparatory  to  a  collegiate  course,  when  failing 
health  compelled  him  to  leave  his  books.  He  entered  his  father's  counting- 
room,  but  the  routine  of  service  there,  and  the  restraints  of  a  stern  parent,  be- 
came exceedingly  irksome  to  him.  He  thirsted  intensely  for  knowledge  to  be 
derived  from  books ;  and  a  punishment  which  he  deemed  unmerited,  inflicted  by 
his  father's  hand,  was  made  an  excuse  for  his  sudden  flight  from  home.  For 
many  weeks  he  was  a  close  student  in  a  boarding-school  at  Burlington,  New 
Jersey,  before  his  friends  ascertained,  by  accident,  his  place  of  concealment.  A 
reconciliation  was  effected,  and  Lindley  returned  to  the  drudgery  of  a  merchant's 
desk. 


64  JACOB   LEISLER. 


After  much  persuasion,  young  Murray's  father  permitted  him  to  enter  the  law 
office  of  Benjamin  Kissam,  as  a  student,  where  he  enjoyed  the  fellowship  of 
John  Jay,  then  preparing  for  that  brilliant  public  career  upon  which  he  soon 
afterward  entered.  His  father  gave  him  a  fine  law  library,  and  Lindley  Murray 
commenced  the  practice  of  his  profession,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  with  prom- 
ises of  great  success.  He  married  an  amiable  woman,  and  regarded  himself 
as  permanently  settled  for  life,  when  feeble  health  admonished  him  to  try  a 
change  of  climate.  He  went  to  England,  was  greatly  benefited,  and  sent  for 
his  family;  but  yearning  for  his  native  land,  he  returned  in  1771.  "When  the 
War  for  Independence  broke  out,  he  acted  consistently  with  the  principles  and 
discipline  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  of  which  he  was  a  valued  member,  and  re- 
mained neutral  and  in  retirement,  at  Islip,  Long  Island.  His  father  died  during 
the  war,1  and  on  the  return  of  peace,  Lindley  went  back  to  the  city,  resumed 
the  mercantile  business,  which  ho  abandoned  in  youth,  purchased  a  beautiful 
country-seat  on  the  Hudson,  and  seemed  about  to  take  rank  with  the  merchant 
princes.  Again  ill-health  warned  him  away  from  the  changeable  climate  of 
New  York.  He  went  to  England,  purchased  a  beautiful  estate  in  Yorkshire, 
and  there  gradually  sunk  into  the  confirmed  invalid's  chair.  His  malady  was  a 
disease  of  the  muscles,  which  finally  deprived  him  of  the  use  of  his  limbs.  For 
sixteen  years  he  was  confined. to  his  room,  and  it  was  during  that  long  season 
of  bodily  affliction  that  he  produced  his  popular  English  Grammar,  English 
Reader,  and  several  religious  works.  At  his  death,  which  occurred  on  the  16th 
of  February,  1826,  in  the  eigbrty-first  year  of  his  age,  he  left  a  fund,  the  interest 
of  which  was  to  be  devoted  to  the  diffusion  of  religious  sentiments  in  America. 
The  Trustees  faithfully  execute  that  provision  of  his  will,  and  have  gratuitously 
distributed  many  thousands  of  his  "  Power  of  Religion  on  the  Mind."  They  have 
just  published  Dymond's  "Inquiry  into  the  Accordance  of  War  with  the  Prin- 
ciples of  Christianity,"  for  the  same  purpose. 


JACOB    LEISLER. 

THE  public  life  of  Jacob  Leisler,  the  first  martyr  to  the  democratic  faith  in 
America,  presents  a  picture  of  the  active  development  of  republican  ideas 
which  had  taken  root  in  the  New  World,  and  began  to  germinate,  more  than 
half  a  century  before.  He  was  a  native  of  Frankfort,  in  Germany,  and  came  to 
America  in  1660.  He  first  settled  at  Fort  Orange  (Albany),  in  New  Netherland ; 
and  about  the  time  when  the  province  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  English,  and 
New  Amsterdam  became  New  York,  he  began  commercial  life  in  that  city. 
While  on  a  voyage  to  Europe,  about  the  year  1675,  he  was  made  a  prisoner  by 
some  Mediterranean  pirates,  and  sold  to  a  Turk,  with  seven  others.  He  paid  a 
high  price  for  his  ransom,  and  then  returned  to  New  York,  where  he  became 
one  of  the  most  successful  and  influential  merchants.  In  1683,  notwithstanding 
his  well-known  Protestant  feelings,  the  Roman  Catholic  governor  Dongan  ap- 
pointed him  one  of  the  commissioners  of  the  court  of  admiralty.  He  also  had 
command  of  a  militia  corps,  and  was  very  popular.  When,  in  the  Spring  of 
1689,  the  dethronement  of  James  the  Second  was  known,  and  changes  took 
place  in  the  governments  of  the  several  colonies,  the  people  of  New  York  imme- 
diately appointed  a  committee  of  safety,  under  whose  direction  Leisler  was  re- 

1.  Robert  Murray,  the  father  of  Lindley,  owned  one  of  the  first  (hree  coaches  introduced  into  the  city 
of  New  York,  about  ninety  years  ago.  Another,  owned  by  Mr.  Beekman,  is  yet  well  preserved,  and  in 
possession  of  his  descendant,  Hon.  James  W.  Beekman.  There  was  much  prejudice  against  coaches, 
when  they  were  introduced,  and  Murray  called  his  "  a  leathern  conveniency."  His  country  seat  was 
on  land  now  known  as  Murray  Hill,  in  the  city  of  New  York. 


JAMES  BOWDOIN.  65 


quested  to  take  charge  of  the  fort,  in  the  name  of  the  new  sovereigns,  William 
and  Mary.  Nicholson,  the  successor  of  Dongan,  fled  on  board  a  vessel  and 
departed,  and  the  people  consented  to  Leisler's  assuming  the  powers  of  governor 
until  a  new  one  should  be  appointed  by  the  crown.  This  act  offended  the 
magistrates  and  the  aristocracy;  and  when  Governor  Sloughter  arrived  in  1691, 
Leisler  was  accused  of  high  treason.  His  son-in-law,  Milborne,  who  acted  as 
his  deputy,  was  included  in  the  charge.  Although  Leisler  surrendered  his 
authority  into  the  hands  of  the  legally-appointed  governor,  yet,  when  he  went 
in  person  to  deliver  up  the  keys  of  the  fort,  both  he  and  Milborne  were  seized 
and  cast  into  prison  by  those  who  had  resolved  on  their  destruction.  They  were 
tried  on  a  charge  of  treason,  found  guilty,  and  condemned  to  death.  Sloughter 
felt  the  injustice  of  the  sentence,  and  withheld  his  signature  to  their  death- 
warrants.  He  was  an  inebriate,  and  at  a  dinner  party,  given  for  the  purpose, 
he  became  drunk,  and  while  in  that  state,  was  induced,  unconsciously,  to  put 
his  name  to  the  fatal  instrument.  Before  he  became  sober,  Leisler  and  Milborne 
were  suspended  upon  a  gallows  on  the  verge  of  Beekman's  swamp,  near  the 
spot  where  Tammany  Hall  now  [1854]  stands.  These  were  the  proto-martyrs 
of  liberty  in  America.  Their  death  lighted  an  intense  flame  of  party  spirit;  and 
the  pretence  made  by  their  enemies,  that  Leisler  was  inimical  to  the  Protestant 
King  and  Queen,  had  not  the  shadow  of  a  foundation.  The  fact  that  in  1689, 
he  purchased  a  tract  on  Long  Island  Sound,  in  Westchester  county,  for  the  per- 
secuted Huguenots  (which  they  named  New  Rochelle),  was  a  sufficient  refuta- 
tion of  the  false  charge.  Leisler's  property,  which  the  local  government  confis- 
cated, was  afterward  restored  to  his  family. 


JAMES    BOWDOIN. 

FROM  the  stock  of  the  Huguenots,  or  French  Protestants,  who  fled  from  France 
on  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of  Nantes,  came  many  noble  men  who  shine 
as  stars  in  the  firmament  of  our  political  and  social  history.  James  Bowdoin, 
the  eminent  statesman  and  governor,  was  of  that  stock.  He  was  born  in  Bos- 
ton on  the  18th  of  August,  1727.  His  grandfather  fled  from  France  in  1685, 
and  came  to  America  by  way  of  Ireland,  two  years  later,  and  settled  at  Fal- 
mouth  (now  Portland),  in  Maine.  James  was  the  son  of  an  eminent  merchant, 
and  was  educated  at  Harvard  College,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1745.  He 
wras  remarkable  for  his  application,  while  a  student,  and  his  deportment  was 
always  correct.  He  had  just  laid  the  foundation  of  a  good  character,  when,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-one  years,  his  father  died,  and  left  him  an  ample  fortune. 
Yet  that  possession  did  not  cause  him  to  fold  his  hands  in  idleness.  His  thirst- 
ing mind  sought  out  the  pleasant  fountains  of  knowledge :  and  soon  after  his 
marriage,  in  1749,  he  commenced  a  system  of  literary  and  scientific  research. 
He  was  elected  to  represent  Boston  in  the  General  Court,  in  1753,  where  his 
learning  and  eloquence  soon  made  him  a  conspicuous  leader.  Three  years  after- 
ward, he  was  chosen  to  a  seat  in  the  Council,  where  he  was  a  highly-respected 
member  for  many  years.  When  grievances  began  to  be  complained  of  by  the 
colonists,  Bowdoin  was  found  upon  the  side  of  the  people,  and  for  this  offence, 
he  was  refused  a  seat  in  the  council,  by  Governor  Bernard,  in  1769.  Hutchinson, 
however,  allowed  him  to  take  a  seat  at  the  council  board,  saying,  "His  opposi- 
tion to  our  measures  will  be  less  injurious  here  than  in  the  house  of  represent- 
atives," to  which  the  people  had  elected  him.  He  was  chosen  a  delegate  to 
the  first  Congress  in  1774,  but  the  illness  of  his  wife  prevented  his  attendance. 


66  SAMUEL   KIRKLAND. 

The  following  year  he  was  chosen  president  of  the  council  of  Massachusetts,  and 
he  held  that  important  office  most  of  the  time  until  the  adoption  of  the  State 
Constitution  in  1780.  He  was  president  of  the  convention  which  formed  that 
instrument;  and  in  1785,  when  John  Hancock  resigned  the  chair  of  chief 
magistrate  of  the  State,  Bowdoin  was  chosen  to  succeed  him  in  office.  It  was 
during  his  administration  that  the  troubles,  known  as  Shay's  Rebellion,  took  place 
in  Massachusetts.  By  his  orders,  four  thousand  troops  were  placed  under  the 
command  of  General  Lincoln,  to  suppress  the  insurrection ;  and  he  was  one  of 
the  largest  contributors  to  a  voluntary  subscription  of  money,  which  was  raised 
in  Boston,  within  a  few  hours,  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  troops.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  Massachusetts  convention,  called  to  deliberate  on  the  Federal 
Constitution,  and  he  gave  that  instrument  his  hearty  support..  Governor  Bo\v- 
doin  was  a  patron  of  letters.  He  subscribed  liberally  for  the  restoration  of  the 
library  of  Harvard  College,  destroyed  in  1764;  and  from  1779  till  1784,  he  was 
a  fellow  of  the  corporation.  In  1780,  he  was  instrumental  in  founding  the 
American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  in  Boston ;  and  his  fostering  care  was 
given  to  other  societies,  humane  and  scientific.  The  University  at  Edinburgh 
conferred  upon  him  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws,  and  he  was  chosen  a  member 
of  the  Royal  Societies  of  London  and  Dublin.  He  was  a  benevolent  Christian, 
in  the  highest  sense  of  the  term;  and  in  all  his  numerous  writings  fundamental 
truths  of  Christianity  were  prominently  recognized.  This  eminent  man  died  at 
Boston,  in  1790,  at  the  ago  of  sixty-three  years. 


SAMUEL     KIRKLAND. 

"  TTOW  beautiful  upon  the  mountains  are  the  feet  of  those  "  who  carry  the 
11  gospel  of  peace,  love,  and  brotherhood  to  the  dark-minded  without  tho 
pale  of  civilization.  Peerless  among  such  faithful  messengers,  was  Samuel 
Kirkland,  who,  for  forty  years,  labored  with  untiring  zeal  among  the  pagans  of 
central  New  York.  He  was  born  at  Norwich,  Connecticut,  on  the  1st  of  Decem- 
ber, 1741,  and  through  life  exhibited  the  indomitable  courage,  energ}r,  and  per- 
severance of  his  Scotch  lineage.  Of  his  childhood  we  know  very  little.  In 
early  youth  he  entered  Dr.  Wheelock's  school  at  Lebanon,  and  prepared  to  be  a 
missionary  among  the  Indians.  There  he  was  much  beloved  for  his  gentleness, 
a  quality  which  endeared  him  to  his  fellow-students  at  Princeton,  where  he  pur- 
sued a  collegiate  course  of  studies  from  1762  until  1764.  He  left  the  institution 
before  completing  his  education,  and  dwelt  with  the  Seneca  Indians  from  1764 
until  1766.  He  received  his  collegiate  degree,  however,  in  1765;  and  in  June, 
1766,  he  was  ordained,  at  Lebanon,  as  a  missionary  to  the  Indians,  under  the 
sanction  of  the  Scotch  Society  for  propagating  the  gospel  among  the  heathen. 
He  entered  upon  his  work  in  August,  and  made  his  residence  among  tho  Oneidas 
at  their  "council  house,"  a  little  south-west  of  Fort  Stanwix,  now  Rome.  There 
he  built  a  house  with  his  own  hands,  and  labored  day  and  night  for  the  good 
of  the  poor  Indians.  Toil  and  exposure  impaired  his  health,  and  he  sought  its 
restoration  by  passing  the  Summer  of  1769  with  his  friends  in  Connecticut.  In 
the  Autumn  he  married  a  niece  of  Dr.  "Wheelock,  and  soon  afterward  ho  returned 
to  his  post  of  duty  in  the  wilderness,  accompanied  by  his  excellent  wife,  as  far 
as  the  house  of  General  Herkimer,  at  the  Little  Falls  of  the  Mohawk.1  She  re- 
mained there  a  few  weeks,  until  her  forest  home  was  made  comfortable ;  and 

1.  Early  the  following  Summer,  Mrs.  Kirkland  started  to  visit  her  mother  in  Connecticut.  She  pro- 
cse  !e  \  on  horseback,  but  went  no  farther  than  Ihe  house  of  General  Herkimer,  where  she  gnve  birth  to 
twin  t  on  ,  in  August,  1770.  One  of  these  was  afterward  President  Kirkland  of  Harvard  College. 


SAMUEL   KIRKLAND. 


67 


then  they  commenced  those  joint  missionary  labors,  which  were  exceedingly 
successful  until  the  preparations  of  the  War  for  Independence  were  commenced. 
Those  disturbances  deranged  their  noble  plans ;  and  the  growing  insecurity  of 
forest  life  caused  Mr.  Kirkland  to  fix  the  residence  of  his  family  at  Stockbridge, 
in  Western  Massachusetts.  Yet  ho  did  not  desert  his  post,  but  labored  on 
through  all  the  dark  scenes  of  the  seven  years'  war  that  ensued,  not  only  for  the 
spiritual  benefit  of  the  dusky  tribes,  but  in  unceasing  endeavors  to  keep  the  Six 
Nations1  neutral.  Ho  succeeded  with  the  Oneidas,  only ;  the  other  tribes  be- 
came active  allies  of  the  British,  for  the  influence  of  Sir  William  Johnson  and 
his  family  was  greater  than  that  of  the  missionary. 

Mr.  Kirkland  was  chaplain  at  Fort  Schuyler  (formerly  Fort  Stanwix,  now 
Rome,  in  Oneida  county)  for  some  time,  and  in  that  capacity  he  accompanied 
General  Sullivan  in  his  expedition  from  Wyoming,  against  the  Senecas,  in  1778. 
After  that,  he  was  at  Fort  Schuyler  and  vicinity,  or  with  his  family  at  Stock- 
bridge,  until  peace  was  declared.  In  subsequent  treaties  with  the  Indians,  he 
was  very  active  and  useful ;  and  when  the  field  of  his  labors  began  again  to 
whiten,  under  the  blessed  sun  of  peace,  his  family  prepared  to  make  their  resi- 
dence in  the  Indian  country.  It  was  never  accomplished,  for  Mrs.  Kirkland 
sickened  at  the  close  of  1787,  and  late  in  January  following,  she  died.  The  be- 
reaved missionary  left  her  grave  for  his  harvest  field  in  the  wilderness,  and  toiled 

of  New  York.  It  originally  consisted  of  five  tribes,  namely, 
were  joined  by  their  kindred  in  language, 
ist  century. 


1.  The  Iroquois  confederacy  in  the  State  of  New  York.  Ii 
nonrtaga,  Seneca,  Oneida,  Mohawk,  and  Cayuga.  These  i 
le  Tuscaro:  as  of  North  Carolina,  in  the  early  part  of  the  la 


Ono.. 
theT 


68  ANN   LEE. 


on,  year  after  year,  in  civil  and  religious  duties.  He  accompanied  a  delegation 
of  Senecas  to  Philadelphia,  in  1790,  and  was  rewarded  by  the  conversion  to 
Christianity  of  the  great  chief,  Cornplanter,  with  whom  he  travelled,  instructed 
and  convinced.  In  1791,  he  made  a  census  of  the  Six  Nations,  and  at  the  same 
time  he  succeeded  in  establishing  an  institution  of  learning,  which  was  incor- 
porated in  1793,  under  the  title  of  The  Hamilton  Oneida  Academy.  This  was 
the  origin  of  Hamilton  College.  Mr.  Kirklaud  continued  his  labors  among  the 
Oneidas  until  his  death,  which  occurred,  after  a  brief  illness,  at  his  residence  in 
Paris,  Oneida  county,  on  the  28th  of  February,  1808,  in  the  sixty-seventh  year 
of  his  age. 


ANN    LEE, 

FOUNDERS  of  sects  become  famous  by  their  fruits,  whether  they  be  good  or 
evil;  and  in  the  consistent,  upright  character  of  followers,  impostors  have 
obtained  canonization  as  saints.  Of  such  as  these  was  the  immortal  Ann  Lee, 
the  founder,  in  America,  of  the  sect  known  as  Shaking  Quakers.  She  was  born 
in  Manchester,  England,  about  the  year  1736.  Her  father  was  a  blacksmith, 
and  she  was  taught  the  trade  of  cutting  fur  for  hatters.  She  married  young, 
and  had  four  children,  who  all  died  in  infancy.  At  the  age  of  twenty-two  years, 
she  became  a  convert  to  the  doctrines  of  James  "Wardley,  a  Quaker,  who  preached 
the  holiness  of  celibacy,  and  the  wickedness  of  marriage,  and  whose  followers, 
because  of  the  great  agitations  of  their  bodies  when  religiously  exercised,  were 
called  Shakers.1  After  nine  years  of  discipline,  she  opened  her  mouth  as  a 
teacher;  and  in  1770,  while  confined  in  prison  as  a  half-crazed  fanatic,  she  pre- 
tended to  have  had  a  revelation  of  great  spiritual  gifts.  She  declared  that  in 
her  dwelt  the  "  "Word ;"  and  her  followers  say,  "  the  man  who  was  called  Jesus, 
and  the  woman  who  was  called  Ann,  are  verily  the  two  great  pillars  of  the 
church."  She  was  acknowledged  to  be  a  spiritual  mother  in  Israel,  and  is  known 
by  the  common  appellation  of  "  Mother  Ann."  She  came  to  New  York  in  1774, 
with  her  brother  and  a  few  followers ;  and  in  the  Spring  of  1776,  they  settled 
at  Niskayuna  (now  Watervliet,  opposite  Troy),  where  the  sect  still  nourishes. 
Some  charged  Mother  Ann  with  witchcraft ;  and  vigilant  Whigs,  knowing  that 
she  preached  against  war  in  every  shape,  suspected  her  of  secret  correspondence 
with  her  countrymen,  the  British.  A  charge  of  high  treason  was  preferred 
against  her,  and  she  was  imprisoned  in  Albany  during  the  Summer  of  1776.  In 
the  Autumn  she  was  sent  as  far  as  Poughkeepsic,  with  the  intention  of  forward- 
ing her  to  New  York,  within  the  British  lines.  She  remained  a  prisoner  at 
Poughkeepsie,  until  some  time  in  1777,  when  she  was  released  by  Governor 
Clinton.  She  then  returned  to  Watervliet.  Persecution  had  awakened  sym- 
pathy for  her,  and  her  followers  greatly  increased.  A  wild  revival  movement 
in  the  vicinity,  in  1780,  poured  a  flood'  of  converts  into  her  lap,  and  she  deluded 
the  silly  creatures  with  the  assertion  that  she  was  the  "  woman  clothed  with 
the  sun,"  mentioned  in  the  Apocalypse.  She  told  them  that  she  daily  judged 
the  dead  of  all  nations,  who  came  to  her,  and  that  no  favor  could  be  had,  except 
through  a  confession  of  sins  to  her.  She  became  a  Pontifix  Maximus — a  second 
Pope  Joan — and  under  her  directions,  the  faithful  discarded  all  worldly  things, 
and  gave  into  her  hands  all  their  jewels,  knee-buckles,  money,  and  other  valu- 
ables. She  excited  their  fear  and  admiration  by  mutterings,  groans,  and  strange 

1.  For  a  similar  reason,  George  Fox  (the  founder  of  the  Society  of  Friends)  and  his  followers  were 
called  Quakers.    See  note  on  page  62. 


THOMAS   GODFREY.  69 


gestures;  and  introduced  dancing,  whirling,  hopping,  and  other  eccentricities, 
into  the  ceremonials  of  pretended  worship.  Mother  Ann  declared  to  her  deluded 
followers  that  she  would  not  die,  but  be  suddenly  translated  into  heaven  like 
Enoch  and  Elijah.  Notwithstanding  she  did  actually  die  at  Watervliet,  on  the 
8th  of  September,  1784,  her  followers  believe  that  it  was  not  real  death.  In  a 
poetic  "Memorial  to  Mother  Ann,"  written  by  one  of  them,  occurs  the  stanza: 

"  H->w  much  they  are  mistaken,  who  think  that  Mother  's  dead, 
When  through  her  ministrations  so  many  souls  aie  saved. 
In  union  with  the  Father,  she  is  the  second  Eve, 
Dispensing  full  salvation  to  all  who  do  believe." 


THOMAS    GODFREY. 

A  PLAIN"  mechanic  was  one  day  replacing  a  pane  of  glass  in  a  window  on  the 
north  side  of  Arch  Street,  Philadelphia,  opposite  a  pump,  when  a  girl,  after 
filling  her  pail  with  water,  placed  it  on  the  side  walk.  The  mechanic  observed 
the  rays  of  the  sun  reflected  from  the  window,  into  the  pail  of  water.  This  cir- 
cumstance produced  a  train  of  reflections  in  a  highly  mathematical  mind,  and 
led  to  an  important  discovery.  That  mechanic  was  Thomas  Godfrey,  who  was 
born  about  a  mile  from  Germantown,  in  Pennsylvania,  in  the  year  1704. 

Godfrey's  early  education  was  limited ;  and  at  a  proper  age  he  was  appren- 
ticed to  a  glazier,  in  Philadelphia.  He  entered  into  the  business  on  his  own 
account  in  1725,  and  was  employed  in  glazing  Christ  Church  and  the  State 
House,1  both  of  which  are  yet  standing  in  the  old  part  of  Philadelphia.  From 
early  boyhood  Godfrey  exhibited  great  taste  for  figures ;  and,  like  Rittenhouse, 
he  often  exhibited  his  diagrams  in  his  place  of  labor.  A  work  on  mathematics 
having  fallen  into  his  hands,  he  soon  mastered  the  science,  and  then  he  learned 
the  Latin  language,  so  as  to  read  the  works  of  the  best  writers  upon  his  favorite 
subject. 

In  the  Summer  of  1729,  Godfrey  was  employed  by  James  Logan  to  glaze 
some  windows  in  his  library,  and  there  he  first  saw  Newton's  Principia.  He 
borrowed  the  work;  and  early  in  1730,  he  communicated  his  invention  of  the 
Quadrant  (an  astronomical  and  nautical  instrument,  of  great  value)  to  that  gen- 
tleman. His  reflections  on  the  Arch  Street  incident,  with  the  perusal  of  New- 
ton's work,  had  resulted  in  this  invention.  Mr.  Logan  took  great  interest  in 
the  matter,  and  conveyed  information  of  the  invention  to  the  Royal  Society  of 
London,  through  his  friend,  Sir  Hans  Sloane.  That  institution  rewarded  Mr. 
Godfrey  for  his  ingenuity,  by  presenting  to  him  a  quantity  of  household  fur- 
niture, valued  at  one  thousand  dollars,  but  divided  the  honor  of  first  discoverer 
equally  between  him  and  John  Hadley,  then  vice-president  of  the  institution. 

That  the  sale  honor  was  justly  due  to  Godfrey,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  for  the 
fact  appears  to  be  well  authenticated,  that  the  first  instrument  made  of  brass, 
from  Godfrey's  wooden  model,  was  taken  by  the  inventor's  brother,  captain  of 
a  vessel  in  the  "West  India  trade,  to  the  island  of  Jamaica,  and  there  exhibited 
to  some  English  naval  officers.  Among  these  was  a  nephew  of  John  Hadley. 
He  purchased  the  instrument  of  Captain  Godfrey  for  a  large  sum  of  money,  and 
took  it  to  his  uncle,  in  London,  who  was  a  mathematical  instrument  maker. 
That  gentleman  made  another  instrument  like  it,  except  a  few  alterations,  arid 
presented  it  to  the  Royal  Society,  with  an  explanatory  paper,  as  his  invention. 

1.  Independence  Hall,  wherein  Congress  was  assembled  when  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
adopted  on  the  4th  of  July,  1776,  is  in  this  State  House.  The  exterior  of  the  building  has  been  somewhat 
changed  since  then. 


70  PONTIAC. 


That  presentation  occurred  on  the  13th  of  May,  1731,  just  about  the  time  that 
Sir  Hans  Sloane  called  the  attention  of  the  Society  to  Godfrey's  invention.  The 
American  inventor,  like  Columbus,  lost  the  honor  of  having  his  name  identified 
with  the  discovery,  and  the  instrument  is  known  as  Hadley's  Quadrant.  Mr. 
Godfrey  died  in  Philadelphia,  in  December,  1749,  at  the  age  of  forty -five  years. 


PONTIAC. 

S~  AVAGE  and  treacherous  as  he  is,  the  native  Indian,  in  his  forest  home,  has 
many  generous  and  noble  qualities,  such  as  we  have  been  taught  to  admire 
when  displayed  by  Roman  warrior  or  Greek  law-giver.  Pontiac,  the  great 
chief  of  the  Ottawa  tribe  a  hundred  years  ago,  possessed  these  in  an  eminent 
degree ;  and  had  his  natural  endowments  been  nurtured  under  the  warm  sun 
of  civilization,  no  doubt  his  name  would  have  been  high  among  the  great  ones 
of  earth.  But  he  was  forest  born,  and  forest  bred,  and  history  speaks  of  him 
only  as  a  great  chief,  filled  with  deadly  hatred  of  the  white  man,  and  renowned 
for  bloody  deeds  and  bloodier  intentions. 

Pontiac,  when  he  first  became  known  to  the  white  man,  was  ruler  of  the 
whole  north-west  portion  of  our  present  domain.  Where  Cleveland  now  stands 
in  its  pride,  Major  Rogers  first  met  the  great  chief,  one  bright  morning  in  the 
Autumn  of  1760.  He  informed  Pontiac  that  the  English  had  taken  Canada 
from  the  French,  and  then  made  a  treaty  of  friendship  with  him.  Though  Pon- 
tiac had  been  the  fast  friend  of  the  French  during  the  war  just  ended,  he  now 
appeared  upon  the  field  of  history,  for  the  first  time,  in  the  full  strength  of 
mature  manhood.  He  was  doubtless  sincere  in  his  treaty  with  the  English,  but 
the  non-fulfilment  of  their  promises,  and  the  influence  of  French  emissaries,  soon 
made  him  trample  all  compacts  beneath  his  feet.  He  did  more,  far  more  than 
any  North  American  Indian  ever  effected  before  or  since.  He  confederated  all 
the  Indian  tribes  of  the  North-west  to  utterly  exterminate  the  English,  or  drive 
them  from  all  their  posts  on  the  great  lakes,  and  in  the  country  around  the  head 
waters  of  the  Ohio.  Like  Philip  of  Mount  Hope,  Pontiac  viewed  the  approach 
of  white  settlements  with  jealousy  and  alarm.  He  saw,  in  the  future,  visions 
of  the  displacement,  perhaps  destruction,  of  his  race,  by  the  palefaces;  and  he 
determined  to  strike  a  blow  for  life  and  country.  So  adroitly  were  his  plans 
matured,  that  the  commanders  of  the  western  forts  had  no  suspicion  of  his  con- 
spiracy until  it  was  ripe,  and  the  first  blow  had  been  struck.  Early  in  the 
Summer  of  1763,  within  a  fortnight,  all  of  the  posts  in  possession  of  the  "English, 
west  of  Oswego,  fell  into  his  hands,  except  Niagara.  Fort  Pitt,  and  Detroit. 
Early  the  following  Spring,  Colonel  Bradstreet  penetrated  the  country  to  Detroit, 
with  a  strong  force.  The  Indians  were  speedily  subdued,  their  power  was 
broken,  and  the  hostile  tribes  sent  their  chiefs  to  ask  for  pardon  and  peace. 
The  haughty  Pontiac  refused  to  bow.  He  went  to  the  country  of  the  Illinois 
tribe,  where  he  was  basely  murdered,  in  1769,  by  a  Peoria  Indian,  who  was 
bribed  by  an  English  trader  to  do  the  deed,  for  a  barrel  of  rum.  The  place  of 
his  murder  was  at  Cahokia,  on  the  east  side  of  the  Mississippi,  a  little  below  St. 
Louis.  A  great  man  fell,  when  Pontiac  died.  He  was  the  greatest  of  all  chiefs 
known  to  the  white  men,  and  deserved  a  better  fate.  It  is  said  that  during  his 
operations  in  1763,  he  appointed  a  commissary,  and  even  issued  bills  of  credit, 
which  passed  current  among  the  French  inhabitants  of  the  North-west.  "When 
he  died,  he  wore  a  uniform  presented  to  him  by  Montcalm,  who  esteemed  him 
highly.  Pontiac  was  an  actor  in  the  last  scene  in  the  drama  of  the  French  and 
Indian  "War. 


FISHER   AMES. 


71 


FISHER    AMES. 

"  TTAPPILY  he  did  not  need  the  smart  of  guilt  to  make  him  virtuous,  nor  the 
11  regret  of  folly  to  make  him  wise,"  were  the  words  uttered  by  one  who 
knew  Fisher  Ames  well,  and  appreciated  his  noble  character.  He  was  a  son  of 
Dr.  Ames,  a  physician  and  a  wit,1  of  Dedham,  Massachusetts,  where  he  was 
born  on  the  9th  of  April,  1756.  He  was  a  delicate  child;  and  so  precocious  was 
he  in  the  acquirement  of  knowledge,  that  at  six  years  of  age  he  commenced  the 
study  of  Latin.  At  the  age  of  twelve  he  was  admitted  to  Harvard  College, 
where  he  was  graduated  in  1774.  That  was  a  year  of  great  gloom  in  Massa- 
chusetts, and  indeed  throughout  the  whole  country ;  and  as  young  Ames'  mother 
was  poor,  and  the  times  made  a  choice  of  business  difficult,  he  taught  a  common 
school  for  awhile.  He  read  and  studied  incessantly,  and,  finally,  prepared  for 
the  profession  of  the  law,  under  "William  Tudor,  in  Boston.  He  commenced  its 


1.  He  kept  a  public-house  at  Dedham,  and  or.  one  occasion,  the  colonial  judges  having,  as  he  thought, 
decided  a  case  against  him  unlawfully,  he  sketched  their  honors  upon  a  sign-board  in  front  of  his 
tavern,  in  their  full-bottomed  wigs,  tippling,  with  their  backs  to  an  open  volume,  labelled  "Province 
Law."  The  Boston  authorities  sent  some  officers  to  Dedham,  to  remove  the  sign.  The  doctor  was  pre- 
pared for  them ;  and  when  they  arrived,  they  found  nothing  hanging  but  a  board,  on  which  was  in- 
scribed, "  A  wicked  and  adulterous  generation  seeketh  for  a  sign,  but  no  sign  shall  be  given  them." 


JOSEPH   GALLOWAY. 


practice  at  Dedham,  in  1781,  and  soon  stood  at  the  head  of  the  bar  in  his  native 
district.  From  early  youth  he  had  exhibited  rare  oratorical  powers.  These 
powers  now  had  fine  opportunities  for  expansion,  and  with  pen  and  tonguo 
Fisher  Ames  soon  attracted  the  attention  of  all  classes  of  his  countrymen.  Ho 
was  a  member  of  the  convention  for  ratifying  the  Federal  Constitution,  in  1788, 
and  there  his  eloquence  gained  him  the  heartiest  applause.  He  was  elected  a 
member  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  the  same  year,  and  in  1789,  he  was 
the  first  representative  of  his  district,  in  the  Federal  Congress.  There  he  was 
the  chief  speaker  in  all  important  debates.  It  is  said  that  on  one  occasion, 1  in 
1796,  his  eloquence  was  so  powerful,  that  a  member,  opposed  to  him,  movedr 
that  the  question  on  which  he  had  spoken  should  be  postponed  until  the  next 
day,  "  that  they  should  not  act  under  the  influence  of  an  excitement  of  which 
their  calm  judgment  might  not  approve."  John  Adams  bluntly  said,  in  allusion 
to  that  speech,  "there  was  n't  a  dry  eye  in  the  house,  except  some  of  the  jack- 
asses that  occasioned  the  necessity  of  the  oratory." 

Mr.  Ames  was  the  author  of  the  "  Address  of  the  House  of  Representatives," 
to  President  "Washington,  on  his  signifying  his  intention  to  withdraw  from  office. 
At  about  the  same  time,  his  own  feeble  health  compelled  him  to  decline  a  re- 
election, and  he  retired  partially  from  public  life.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
council  of  his  State  for  some  years;  and  in  1800,  he  pronounced  a  eulogy  on 
Washington,  before  the  State  Legislature.  He  was  chosen  President  of  Harvard 
College,  in  1805,  but  he  declined  the  honor.  His  powers  of  life  gradually  failed 
for  several  years;  and  on  the  4th  of  July,  1808,  his  pulse  ceased  to  beat,  at  the 
age  of  fifty  years.  In  the  old  church-yard  at  Dedham  is  a  plain  white  monu- 
ment, on  which  is  the  simple  inscription — FISHER  AMES.  Mr.  Ames  was  a  fluent 
and  voluminous  writer,  and  his  collected  productions  are  among  the  choicest 
things  in  our  literature. 


JOSEPH    GALLOWAY. 

AMONG-  the  eminent  loyalists  of  Pennsylvania,  who  adhered  to  the  patriot 
cause  until  the  war  had  fairly  begun,  Joseph  Galloway  was,  perhaps,  the 
most  distinguished.  He  was  born  in  Maryland,  in  1730,  and  early  in  life  ho 
went  to  Philadelphia  to  practice  law,  in  which  profession  he  soon  took  a  high 
rank.  He  obtained  a  beautiful  wife  and  a  considerable  fortune  by  marrying  the 
daughter  of  Lawrence  G-rowdon,  who  was  Speaker  of  the  Assembly  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, for  many  years.  Mr.  Galloway  was  a  member  of  that  body  in  1764,  and 
his  sympathies,  as  manifested  by  his  words  and  actions,  were  always  on  the  side 
of  the  people.  So  well  convinced  were  the  people  of  his  staunch  republicanism, 
that  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  first  Continental  Congress  in  1774,  and  was 
a  very  active  participant  in  the  debates  in  that  body.  He  submitted  a  plan  of 
union  between  Great  Britain  and  the  colonies,  by  which  the  latter  might  be 
comparatively  independent,  with  a  president  at  their  head,  appointed  by  the 
king.  His  plan  was  not  adopted ;  and  when  the  Congress  agreed  upon  a  non- 
importation, non-consumption,  and  non-exportation  scheme,  called  the  American 
Association,  Mr.  Galloway  signed  it.  He  was  never  in  favor  of  a  political  sepa- 
ration from  Great  Britain,  yet  he  was  always  in  favor  of  the  most  stringent  meas- 
ures for  compelling  the  government  to  redress  the  grievances  of  the  colonists. 
In  1775,  he  began  to  show  signs  of  wavering,  by  earnestly  asking  to  be  excused 

1-  Speech  on  Jay's  Treaty. 


TIMOTHY  RUGGLES.  73 


from  serving  as  a  delegate  in  the  Continental  Congress;  and  in  1776,  when  the 
question  of  independence  began  to  be  agitated,  he  abandoned  the  Whigs,  and 
became  one  of  the  most  violent  and  prescriptive  Loyalists.  Afraid  to  remain 
in  Philadelphia,  he  joined  the  royal  army  in  New  York,  where  he  remained 
until  early  in  the  Summer  of  1788,  when  he  went  to  England,  accompanied  by 
his  only  daughter.1  In  1779,  he  was  summoned  before  parliament  to  testify 
concerning  the  state  of  affairs  in  America.  He  was  severe  upon  General  Howe 
and  other  British  officers,  in  relation  to  their  stupid  management.  He  kept  up 
an  extensive  correspondence  with  the  Loyalists,  in  America,  during  the  remain- 
der of  the  war,  and  wrote  several  pamphlets  on  subjects  connected  with  the 
hostilities.  Mr.  Galloway's  large  estates  in  Pennsylvania  were  confiscated ;  and 
when  a  commission  was  appointed,  in  London,  for  prosecuting  the  claims  of  the 
Loyalists,  he  was  made  a  member  of  the  board  for  Delaware  and  Pennsylvania. 
A  large  part  of  his  property  was  afterward  restored  to  his  daughter,  and  is  still 
in  possession  of  his  descendants.  Mr.  Galloway  never  returned  to  America.  He 
died  in  England,  in  September,  1803,  at  the  age  of  seventy-three  years.  During 
the  war,  all  the  Whig  writers  took  delight  in  making  him  a  target  for  their  wit 
and  scorn.  Trumbull,  in  his  McFingall,  gave  him  many  hard  hits ;  and  Philip 
Frenau,  and  other  poets,  scorched  him  severely. 


TIMOTHY    RUOOLES. 

rERE  were  many  able  men  who  stood  in  opposition  to  the  British  govern- 
ment in  the  first  revolutionary  movements  of  the  American  colonies,  but 
who  timidly  receded  when  the  quarrel  became  fierce,  and  the  government  ut- 
tered its  menacing  thunders.  Timothy  Ruggles,  of  Massachusetts,  was  of  that 
class.  He  was  born  at  Rochester,  in  that  province,  in  1711,  and  was  graduated 
at  Harvard  in  1732.  He  became  a  lawyer;  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  years, 
he  was  an  influential  member  of  the  General  Assembly.  He  rose  rapidly  in  his 
profession,  and  was  often  called  to  measure  forensic  weapons  with  the  Otises, 
father  and  son.  He  was  fond  of  military  life,  and  held  the  commission  of  colonel 
in  the  provincial  forces  under  Sir  William  Johnson.  At  the  battle  at  Lake 
George,  in  1755,  he  was  second  in  command  to  Johnson;2  and  was  active  in  the 
campaigns  of  the  two  years  following,  under  Amherst,  when  he  held  the  com- 
mission of  Brigadier-general.  He  also  served  with  distinction,  under  that 
officer,  in  1759-'60,  in  his  expedition  against  Quebec  and  Montreal.  In  1762, 
he  was  appointed  chief  justice  of  the  common  pleas,  and  was  Speaker  of  the 
Assembly  at  the  same  time.  In  1763,  he  made  Hard  wick  his  residence,  where 
he  practiced  his  profession.  The  storm  of  the  Revolution  soon  began  to  lower ; 
and  when,  in  the  Autumn  of  1765,  a  congress  of  delegates,  from  the  different 
provinces,  to  consider  the  grievances  of  the  people,  was  held  at  New  York, 
General  Ruggles  was  a  delegate  thereto,  from  Massachusetts,  and  was  chosen 
president  of  the  convention.  He  was  unwilling  to  go  as  far  as  his  colleagues, 
and  refused  his  cooperation  in  the  proceedings  of  the  congress,  for  which  he  was 


1.  It  is  supposed  that  Galloway's  departure  from  Philadelphia  was  hastened  by  the  discovery  that  his 
daughter  was  about  to  marry  Judge  Griffin,  a  firm  Whig,  and  afterward  President  of  the  Continental 
Congress. 

2.  For  his  good  conduct  in  that  campaign,  he  was  rewarded  with  the  almost  sinecure  office  of  Sur- 
veyor-general of  the  king's  forests.     It  was  a  lucrative  office,  with  very  little  labor. 


74:  JONATHAN  CARVER. 

greatly  censured.  From  that  time  he  ranked  among  the  royalists,  and  in  1774, 
was  made  a  councillor,  and  accepte'd  the  office.  That  act  made  him  very  ob- 
noxious to  the  patriots,  and  he  was  compelled  to  leave  the  country,  and  take 
refuge  under  royal  military  rule,  in  Boston.  His  large  estates  were  confiscated, 
and  he  became  a  refugee,  when  the  British  were  driven  from  Boston,  by  Wash- 
ington, in  the  Spring  of  1776.  He  afterward  returned  to  the  vicinity  of  New 
York,  and  organized  a  corps  of  about  three  hundred  loyalists,  but  seems  not  to 
have  performed  much  active  service.  In  1779,  he  went  to  Nova  Scotia,  where 
he  resided  until  his  death,  which  occurred  in  1798,  when  he  was  eighty-seven 
years  of  age.  General  Ruggles  was  a  scholar,  but  rude  in  manners  and  speech. 
He  has  many  descendants  in  Nova  Scotia. 


JONATHAN    CARVER. 

THE  earliest  A  merican-born  traveller,  of  note,  was  Jonathan  Carver,  who  first 
saw  the  light  of  life,  in  Connecticut,  in  1732.  He  was  educated  for  the 
medical  profession,  but  chose  the  military  art  as  a  vocation,  and  led  a  company 
of  Connecticut  provincials  in  some  of  the  expeditions  against  the  French  in 
northern  New  York,  from  1756  to  1759.  He  served  with  reputation  until  the 
peace  in  1763,  and  soon  afterward  he  formed  the  bold  resolution  to  explore  the 
continent  of  America  from  Lake  Superior  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  He  also  hoped 
thereby  to  be  instrumental  in  finding  the  long-sought  north-west  passage  to 
India. 

Mr.  Carver  left  Michillimackinac  in  the  Autumn  of  1766.  That  was  the  most 
westerly  of  the  British  military  posts.  Bearing  a  few  gifts  for  the  Indians,  he 
penetrated  the  present  Minnesota  Territory  to  the  head  waters  of  the  St.  Pierre, 
more  than  a  thousand  miles  from  the  point  of  his  departure.  He  was  foiled  in 
his  grand  design ;  and  after  spending  some  time  on  the  northern  and  eastern 
shores  of  Lake  Superior,  exploring  its  bays  and  tributaries,  carefully  observing 
the  productions  of  nature  and  the  habits  of  the  Indians,  he  returned  to  the  set- 
tlements, and  laid  his  papers  before  the  governor  of  Massachusetts,  at  Boston. 
He  had  been  absent  about  two  years,  and  had  travelled  over  seven  thousand 
miles. 

Having  carefully  arranged  his  journals  and  charts,  Mr.  Carver  went  to  Eng- 
land for  the  purpose  of  publishing  them.  He  petitioned  the  king  for  a  re-im- 
bursement  of  funds  which  he  had  spent  in  the  service  of  the  government,  in 
these  explorations,  but  his  claims  were  deferred.  He  received  permission,  how- 
ever, to  publish  his  papers,  and  he  sold  them  to  a  bookseller.  Just  as  they  were 
ready  for  the  press,  he  was  ordered  to  deliver  all  his  charts  and  papers  into  the 
hands  of  the  Commissioners  of  Plantations,  and  he  was  compelled  to  re-purchase 
them  from  the  bookseller.  Ten  years  elapsed  before  he  was  allowed  to  lay  them 
before  the  public.  In  disappointment  and  poverty,  he  became  a  lottery  clerk ; 
and  finally,  in  1779,  his  necessities  induced  him  to  sell  his  name  to  a  historical 
compilation,  published  in  folio,  and  entitled  The  New  Universal  Traveller.  This 
act  caused  the  loss  of  his  clerkship,  and  many  professed  friends  abandoned  him. 
He  died  in  the  suburbs  of  London,  in  extreme  want,  in  1780,  at  the  age  of  only 
forty-eight  years.  Such  is  sometimes  the  fate  of  genius.  An  edition  of  his 
travels  was  published  in  Boston  in  1797. 


REBECCA   MOTTE. 


75 


REBECCA    MOTTE. 

THE  fortitude,  courage,  and  unfaltering  patriotism  of  the  women  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, were  remarkably  and  universally  displayed.  Everywhere — in  every 
province,  they  were  actors  as  well  as  sufferers;  and  many  a  scheme  of  British 
aggression  was  frustrated  by  the  sisters,  wives,  and  daughters  of  those  who  were 
in  the  camp  or  field.  South  Carolina  presents  many  such  bright  examples,  but 
none  appear  more  brilliant  than  Rebecca  Motte,  whose  unwavering  courage  and 
fidelity,  as  well  as  sacrifices,  attest  her  ardent  patriotism.  She  was  the  youngest 
daughter  of  Robert  Brewton,  who  emigrated  to  America  in  1733,  and  married, 
at  Charleston,  an  accomplished  young  lady,  a  native  of  Ireland.  He  made 
Charleston  his  residence,  and  there  Rebecca  was  born  on  the  28th  of  June,  1738. 
At  the  age  of  twenty,  she  married  Jacob  Motte,  a  descendant  of  one  of  the 
Huguenot  families  of  South  Carolina.  He  owned  a  fine  plantation  near  the 
banks  of  the  Congaree,  and  there  Mrs.  Motte,  the  mother  of  six  children,  and  a 
widow,  resided  during  the  War  for  Independence. 

After  the  fall  of  Charleston,  in  1780,  the  British  commander  sought  to  hold 
military  possession  of  South  Carolina,  by  establishing  fortified  camps  in  the  in- 
terior. The  fine  mansion  of  Mrs.  Motte  was  taken  possession  of,  fortified  for 
the  purpose,  and  named  Port  Motte.  The  garrison  was  commanded  by  Major 
McPherson,  in  May,  1781,  when  Marion  and  Lee  appeared  and  commenced  a 
siege.  Mrs.  Motte  had  been  driven  from  her  mansion  by  the  British,  and  had 


76  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 


taken  up  her  abode  in  her  farm-house,  whither  her  mother1  (who  resided  with 
her)  had  carried  a  beautiful  bow  and  bundle  of  arrows,  presented  to  her  son  by 
an  East  India  captain.  Having  but  one  cannon,  the  Americans  could  make  but 
little  impression  on  the  British  works.  Lee's  fertile  mind  conceived  the  idea  of 
dislodging  the  enemy  by  burning  the  mansion,  that  act  to  be  effected  by  hurling 
ignited  combustibles  upon  the  dry  roof,  by  means  of  arrows.  He  suggested  the 
plan  to  Mrs.  Motte.  She  heartily  approved  of  it,  notwithstanding  it  involved 
the  destruction  of  her  property ;  and  she  presented  Lee  with  the  East  India  bow 
and  arrows,  for  the  service.  The  hoped-for  result  was  accomplished ;  and  after 
the  British  had  surrendered,  Mrs.  Motte  regaled  the  officers  of  both  armies  with 
a  sumptuous  dinner.  One  of  her  daughters  married  General  Thomas  Pinckney, 
one  of  the  most  valuable  officers  of  the  South.  Mrs.  Motte  lived,  greatly 
beloved  by  all,  until  the  year  1815,  when  she  died,  at  the  age  of  seventy-seven 
years.  "  Her  children  "  (and  children's  children)  "  rise  up  and  call  her  blessed." 


SAMUEL    ADAMS. 

"  OUCH  is  the  obstinacy  and  inflexible  disposition  of  the  man,  that  he  can 
kJ  never  be  conciliated  by  any  office  or  gift  whatever,"  was  the  unintentional 
eulogium  of  Samuel  Adams,  by  the  royal  governor,  Hutchinson,  when  asked 
why  he  did  not  purchase  the  patriot  by  offers  of  place  and  money.  The  eulogium 
was  just,  for  a  more  inflexible  patriot  never  bared  his  arm  for  conflict,  than  that 
scion  of  the  old  Puritan  stock  of  Boston.  He  was  born  in  that  city  on  the  27th 
of  September,  1722,  and  in  1740,  was  graduated  at  Harvard  College.  His  ideas 
of  popular  rights  seem  to  have  had  an  early  growth,  for  in  1743,  when  he  re- 
ceived the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts,  he  proposed  for  discussion  the  question,  "Is 
it  lawful  to  resist  the  supreme  magistrate,  if  the  commonwealth  cannot  otherwise 
be  preserved  ?"  He  maintained  the  affirmative,  with  great  vigor.  His  pen  was 
early  employed  in  political  discussion,  and  the  soundness  of  his  judgment,  and 
purity  of  his  thoughts,  made  him  very  popular,  even  before  public  affairs  called 
his  patriotism  into  activity.  His  earliest  public  office  was  that  of  tax-gatherer, 
by  which  he  became  personally  acquainted  with  all  classes  of  people.  In  1765,  he 
was  chosen  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Assembly.  He  was  also  clerk  of  that 
body,  and  for  almost  ten  years  he  swayed  a  powerful  influence  in  the  Colonial 
Assembly,  as  a  leading  and  bold  representative  of  the  republican  party  among 
the  people.  Step  by  step,  inch  by  inch,  Samuel  Adams  fought  the  enemies  of 
popular  liberty  during  the  dark  hours  whicli  preceded  the  bursting  of  the  storm 
of  the  Revolution ;  and  he  was  the  most  active  of  the  patriots  of  Boston  in  ex- 
citing the  people  to  acts  like  that  of  the  destruction  of  the  cargoes  of  tea,  in  1773. 
When  royal  government  was  repudiated,  in  1774,  he  was  chosen  a  member  of 
the  provincial  council ;  and  when  General  Gage  sent  his  secretary  to  dissolve 
the  assembly,  just  previous  to  that  popular  congress,  he  found  the  door  of  the 
legislative  chamber  locked,  and  the  key  was  in  Samuel  Adams'  pocket.  Adams 

1.  Mrs.  Brewton  was  remarkable  for  her  boldness  in  the  presence  of  danger,  and  for  her  keen  wit. 
While  in  Charleston,  when  the  British  had  possession  of  that  city,  her  society  was  courted  by  the  elite 
among  the  conquerors,  notwithstanding  she  often  made  them  feel  the  keenness  of  her  sarcasm.  On 
going  into  the  city,  an  officer  inquired,  "What  news  from  the  country?"  "All  nature  smiles,"  she 
repliei,  "  for  everything  is  Greene,  down  to  Monk's  Corner."  General  Greene  had  just  taken  possession 
of  the  State  down  to  that  point.  Just  before  the  siege  of  Fort  Motte,  a  young  British  subaltern  insulted 
the  family,  by  giving  the  names  of  different  American  officers  to  pine  saplings,  and  then  cutting  off  their 
tops  with  his  sword.  After  their  surrender,  Mrs.  Brewton  requested  him  to  amuse  her  again,  in  that 
way,  and  expressed  her  regret  that  the  loss  of  his  sword  would  deny  her  the  privilege.  Colonel  Mon- 
crief  occupied  Governor  Rntledge's  house,  in  Charleston.  Passing  it  with  a  British  officer,  Mrs.  Brew- 
ton  took  a  piece  of  a  crape  flounce  accidentally  torn  from  her  dress,  and  tied  it  to  the  front  railing,  ob 
serving  that  the  house  and  friends  of  the  governor  ought  to  mourn  for  his  absence.  She  was  arrested, 
and  sent  to  Philadelphia  a  few  hours  afterward. 


EGBERT  ROGERS.  77 


was  chosen  a  delegate  to  the  Continental  Congress,  in  1774,  and  there  he  was 
an  exceedingly  useful  public  servant  for  several  years.  He  was  an  earnest  ad- 
vocate of  the  resolution  which  declared  the  colonies  "free  and  independent 
states;"  and  when  some  members  faltered  through  fear  of  failure,  the  stern 
Puritan  exclaimed,  "  I  should  advise  persisting  in  our  struggle  for  liberty,  though 
it  were  revealed  from  heaven  that  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  were  to  perish, 
and  only  one  of  a  thousand  were  to  survive,  and  retain  his  liberty !  One  such 
free  man  must  possess  more  virtue,  and  enjoy  more  happiness,  than  a  thousand 
slaves ;  and  let  him  propagate  his  like,  and  transmit  to  them  what  he  hath  so 
nobly  preserved."  Such  was  the  temper  of  the  man  who  originated  the  idea  of 
a  Colonial  Congress,  in  1765,  and  was  the  earliest  advocate  of  a  Continental 
Congress,  in  1774.  He  affixed  his  signature  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
in  1776;  and  in  1781,  he  retired  from  Congress,  but  not  from  public  life.  He 
was  a  leading  member  of  the  Massachusetts  convention  to  form  a  state  consti- 
tution; and  in  1789,  he  was  chosen  lieutenant-governor  of  his  native  State.  In 
1794,  he  was  elected  governor,  as  the  successor  of  John  Hancock,  and  was  an- 
nually re-elected,  until  1797,  when  the  infirmities  of  old  age  compelled  him  to 
retire  from  public  life.  On  the  morning  of  the  2d  of  October,  1803,  that  noble 
patriot  expired,  in  the  city  of  his  birth,  at  the  age  of  eighty-two  years. 


ROBERT    ROQERS. 

THE  French  and  Indian  war  developed  much  military  genius  among  the 
J_  American  colonists,  which  was  afterward  brought  into  requisition  by  the 
demands  of  the  revolutionary  contest.  It  did  not  always  take  its  place  on  the 
side  of  republicanism,  as  in  the  case  of  Ruggles  and  many  others.  Major  Robert 
Rogers,  the  bold  commander  of  a  corps  of  Rangers,  and  a  companion-in-arms 
with  Putnam  and  Stark,  was  another  example  of  defection  to  the  cause  of  free- 
dom in  America.  He  was  a  native  of  Dunbarton,  in  New  Hampshire,  and  hav- 
ing entered  the  military  service  in  1755,  became  an  eminent  commander  of  a 
corps  which  performed  signal  services  as  scouts,  and  executors  of  small  but 
important  enterprises,  when  not  engaged  with  the  main  army.  After  the  peace 
in  1763,  he  returned  to  his  native  place,  and  received  the  half-pay  of  a  regular 
British  officer  of  his  rank,  until  the  War  for  Independence  broke  out.  In  1766, 
he  was  made  governor  of  Michillimackinac,  in  the  far  North-west,  where  he  had 
confronted  the  confederates  of  Pontiac,  a  few  years  before.  He  was  accused  of 
a  design  to  plunder  his  own  fort,  and  was  sent  in  irons  to  Montreal.  After  his 
release  he  went  to  England,  was  presented  to  the  king,  and  met  with  royal 
favor ;  but  extravagant  habits  led  him  into  debt,  and  he  was  cast  into  prison. 
He  finally  returned  to  America,  and  when  the  revolutionary  contest  began,  the 
color  of  his  politics  was  doubtful.  His  movements,  toward  the  close  of  1775, 
gave  reason  to  suspect  him  of  being  a  spy;  and  in  June,  1776,  "Washington  had 
him  arrested,  at  South  Amboy,  and  brought  to  New  York,  where  he  professed 
great  friendship  for  his  native  country.  He  was  released  on  parole,  by  Congress, 
and  directed  to  return  to  New  Hampshire,  which  he  did.  He  soon  afterward 
boldly  espoused  the  royal  cause,  raised  a  corps,  which  he  called  the  Queen's 
Rangers,  and  was  with  Howe,  in  Westchester,  previous  to  the  battle  at  White 
Plains.  He  soon  afterward  left  his  corps  in  command  of  Lieutenant-colonel 
Simcoe,  and  went  to  England.  By  an  act  of  his  native  State,  he  was  banished, 
and  never  returned  to  America.  When,  and  where  he  died,  is  not  on  History's 
record.  He  was  a  brave  soldier ;  but.  according  to  his  own  confession,  his  half- 
pay  from  the  crown  made  him  an  adherent  of  royalty. 


78 


BENJAMIN   EUSH. 


BENJAMIN    RUSH. 

MANY  faithful  practitioners  of  the  medical  art  have  justly  borne  the  honorable 
title  given  to  St.  Luke,  of  "beloved  physician;"  but  none  have  better  de- 
served it  than  Dr.  Rush  of  Philadelphia.  He  was  born  at  Byberry,  about  twelve 
miles  north-east  from  that  city,  on  the  24th  of  December,  1745.  When  six 
years  of  age,  death  deprived  him  of  his  father,  and  his  mother  placed  him  under 
the  care  of  his  maternal  uncle,  Dr.  Finley,  who  was  at  the  head  of  an  academy 
in  Maryland.  Desirous  of  giving  him  a  classical  education,  his  mother  sold  her 
little  estate  in  the  country,  engaged  in  trade  in  Philadelphia,  with  success,  and 
in  1759,  was  able  to  place  him  in  college  at  Princeton,  where  he  was  graduated 
at  the  close  of  1760.  The  medical  profession  was  his  choice;  and  he  studied 
the  science  under  the  eminent  Doctors  Redman  and  Shipperi,  until  1766,  when 
he  went  to  Edinburgh  to  complete  his  scientific  studies  there.  In  the  Summer 
of  1768,  he  went  to  Paris;  and  in  the  Autumn  he  returned  home,  bearing  the 
diploma  of  Doctor  of  Medicine,  which  he  had  received  at  Edinburgh.  He  im- 
mediately commenced  practice  in  Philadelphia,  and  never  was  success  more 
brilliant.  His  skill,  polished  manners,  intelligence,  and  kind  attentions  to  the 
poor,  made  him  popular  with  all  classes,  and  he  soon  found  himself  possessed  of 
a  very  lucrative  practice. 


SILAS  DEANE.  79 


In  1769,  Dr.  Rush  was  appointed  professor  of  chemistry  in  the  Medical  Col- 
lege of  Philadelphia,  yet  his  professional  duties  did  not  occupy  his  whole  time. 
He  espoused  the  patriot  cause  immediately  after  his  return  home,  and  his  pen 
became  a  powerful  instrument  in  arousing  the  people  to  energetic  action  in  favor 
of  popular  freedom.  He  declined  a  proffered  seat  in  the  Continental  Congress 
in  1775;  but  when,  the  following  year,  some  of  the  Pennsylvania  delegates  were 
opposed  to  independence,  and  withdrew,  he  consented  to  take  the  seat  of  one 
of  them,  and  his  name  was  affixed  to  the  great  Declaration,  in  August.  The 
following  year,  Congress  appointed  him  physician-general  of  the  middle  depart- 
ment; and  from  that  time  he  declined  all  public  employment,  until  1787,  when 
he  was  a  member  of  the  Pennsylvania  convention  which  ratified  the  Federal 
Constitution.  In  1789,  he  was  made  professor  of  the  theory  and  practice  of 
medicine  in  the  Medical  College  of  Philadelphia;  and  in  1796,  he  was  made 
professor  of  the  practice  of  medicine  in  the  Medical  College  of  Pennsylvania. 
He  held  his  three  professorships  until  his  death.  His  lectures  were  of  the  highest 
order,  and  students  from  all  parts  of  the  United  States  flocked  to  Philadelphia, 
to  attend  them.  Dr.  Rush  was  also  connected  with  the  United  States  mint,  for 
many  years. 

"When,  in  1793,  the  yellow  fever  appeared  in  Philadelphia,  of  most  malignant 
type,  and  many  alarmed  physicians  fled,  Dr.  Rush  remained  at  the  post  of  duty, 
with  a  few  faithful  students,  and  was  instrumental  in  saving  scores  of  lives. 
Some  of  his  pupils  died,  and  he  was  violently  attacked  by  the  disease,  yet  he 
did  not  remit  his  labors,  when  he  could  leave  his  bed.  For  his  fidelity  in  that 
trying  hour  he  was  greatly  beloved.  Nor  did  his  usefulness  end  with  his  life. 
The  impress  of  his  mind  and  energy  is  upon  several  institutions ;  and  the  general 
appreciation  of  his  character  was  manifested  by  his  being  made  honorary  mem- 
ber of  many  literary  and  scientific  societies,  at  home  and  abroad.1  In  all  stations 
he  exhibited  the  character  of  a  consistent  Christian,  and  his  principles  remained 
unscathed  amid  all  the  infidelity  which  French  writers  had  infused  into  the 
minds  of  men  in  high  places,  toward  the  close  of  the  last  century.  That  great 
and  good  man  died  peacefully  at  Philadelphia,  on  the  19th  of  April,  1813,  when 
in  the  sixty-eighth  year  of  his  age.  That  event  was  the  disappearance  of  a  bright 
star  from  the  social  firmament. 


SILAS    DEANE. 

rpHE  first  diplomatic  agent  employed  by  the  Continental  Congress,  in  Europe, 
i.  was  Silas  Deane,  a  native  of  Groton,  Connecticut.  The  date  of  his  birth 
is  unknown.  He  was  graduated  at  Yale  College  in  1758,  and  being  an  active 
patriot,  was  chosen  a  delegate  to  the  first  Continental  Congress,  in  1774.  Early 
in  1776,  he  was  sent  by  that  body,  as  a  political  and  commercial  agent,  to  the 
court  of  France,  to  sound  the  cabinet  of  Louis  the  Sixteenth  on  the  subject  of 
granting  military  supplies  to  the  revolted  colonies.  The  French  King,  willing 
to  injure  England,  listened  to  Deane's  overtures  with  eager  ears,  and  he  obtained 
noble  verbal  promises.  In  the  Autumn  of  1776,  when  the  colonies  had  been 
declared  independent,  Dr.  Franklin  and  Arthur  Lee  were  appointed  commission- 
ers, with  Mr.  Deane,  to  negotiate  treaties  with  foreign  powers.  They  met  at 

1.  He  founded  the  Philadelphia  Dispensary,  in  1786  ;  and  he  was  also  one  of  (he  principal  founders  of 
Dickinson  College,  at  Carlisle,  Pennsylvania.  He  was  president  of  the  American  Society  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  ;  of  the  Philadelphia  Medical  Society  ;  vice-president  of  the  Philadelphia  Bible  Society  : 
and  one  of  the  vice-presidents  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society. 


80  TENCH    COXE. 


Paris,  in  December  of  that  year,  but  it  was  soon  discovered  by  Deane's  col- 
leagues, that  his  appointment  was  an  injudicious  one.  He  exceeded  his  instruc- 
tions concerning  the  employment  of  engineers  for  the  continental  army,  and  he 
was  profuse  in  his  promises  of  offices  of  high  rank,  to  induce  French  gentlemen 
to  go  to  America. 

Influenced  by  Deane's  promises,  many  French  officers  came  over,  and  Congress 
became  very  much  embarrassed  by  their  applications  for  commissions.  Deane 
was  recalled  in  the  Autumn  of  1777,  and  John  Adams  was  appointed  in  his 
place.  Deane  arrived  at  Philadelphia  the  following  Spring,  in  company  with 
Mr.  Gerard,  the  first  minister  sent  hither  by  France,  after  the  treaty  of  amity 
between  the  two  governments,  in  February,  1778.  He  was  called  upon  to  ex- 
plain his  official  course  abroad,  before  the  assembled  Congress,  but  he  did  not 
entirely  acquit  himself  of  the  suspicion  that  he  had  misapplied  the  public  funds, 
while  in  office,  and  he  evaded  thorough  scrutiny  by  pleading  that  his  vouchers 
were  left  among  his  papers,  in  Europe.  In  order  to  mislead  public  opinion,  he 
published  an  address,  in  which  he  arraigned  members  of  Congress  and  those  in 
charge  of  the  operations  of  the  office  for  foreign  affairs,  at  Philadelphia.  Thomas 
Paine  was  at  the  head  of  that  office,  and  in  his  reply  to  Deane,  he  revealed  some 
secrets  concerning  transactions  with  the  French  government,  and  was  requested 
to  resign.  In  1784,  Deane  published  another  address  to  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  complaining  of  ill  treatment  by  the  government.  Very  little  at- 
tention was  paid  to  his  complaints,  and  he  soon  afterward  went  to  England. 
He  died  in  extreme  poverty  at  Deal,  in  England,  in  1789,  at  the  age  of  about 
fifty  years. 


TENCH    COXE. 

AS  we  survey  the  labors  of  useful  men,  we  are  often  compelled  to  regret  the 
paucity  of  their  personal  history,  left  on  record.  We  admire  their  deeds, 
and  wish  to  know  more  of  the  men,  but  Time  has  drawn  the  veil  of  oblivion, 
even  over  the  traditions  of  their  private  life.  Such  is  the  case  in  relation  to 
Tench  Coxe,  one  of  the  most  indefatigable  of  the  publiC'Spirited  men  of  our 
country,  and  to  whom  the  Cotton  interest,  especially,  is  vastly  indebted,  for  he 
labored  long,  assiduously,  and  efficiently,  in  its  behalf.  He  was  a  grandson  of 
Dr.  Daniel  Coxe,  physician  to  the  Queen  of  Charles  the  Second,  arid  of  Queen 
Anne,  of  England,  who  became  one  of  the  principal  proprietors  of  the  soil  of 
"West  Jersey.  His  son,  William  Coxe,  married  the  daughter  of  Tench  Francis, 
attorney-general  of  the  province  of  Pennsylvania,  and  these  were  the  parents  of 
Tench  Coxe,  who  was  born  in  Philadelphia,  on  the  22d  of  May,  1755.  His  chief 
distinction  is  that  of  a  lucid  and  powerful  advocate  of  the  cultivation  of  cotton 
in  the  United  States,  and  of  other  industrial  pursuits.  He  says  that  as  early 
as  1785,  when  he  was  but  thirty  years  of  age,  he  "felt  pleasing  convictions  that 
the  United  States,  in  its  extensive  regions  south  of  Anne  Arundel  and  Talbot 
counties,  Maryland,  would  certainly  become  a  great  cotton  producing  country." 
He  made  these  suggestions  public  at  that  time ;  and  after  the  convention  at 
Annapolis,  in  1786,  called  to  consider  the  business  and  general  interests  of  the 
new  Republic,  the  matter  received  considerable  attention.  While  the  conven- 
tion that  framed  the  Federal  Constitution  was  in  session  in  Philadelphia,  in  1787, 
Mr.  Coxe  delivered  an  admirable  address  on  his  favorite  theme,  before  a  large 
number  of  gentlemen  who  had  assembled  in  that  city,  for  the  purpose  of  estab- 
lishing a  society  for  the  encouragment  of  manufactures  and  the  useful  arts. 
That  address  thoroughly  awakened  the  public  mind.  Before  that  time,  not  a 


TENCH   COXE. 


81 


bale  of  cotton  had  ever  been  exported  from  the  United  States  to  any  country, 
and  no  planter  had  adopted  its  cultivation  as  a  "crop."  What  a  change  has 
taken  place  within  less  than  seventy  years !  That  then  neglected  article  has 
now  become  a  staple  of  several  of  the  States  of  our  Union,  and  the  source  of 
great  national  wealth. 

From  1787,  until  the  death  of  Mr.  Coxe,  on  the  17th  of  July,  1824,  there  was 
never  any  important  movement  in  favor  of  the  introduction  and  promotion  of 
manufactures,  in  which  his  name  did  not  appear  prominent.  In  1794,  he 
published  a  large  octavo  volume,  which  contained  what  he  had  previously 
written  on  the  subject  of  the  growth  of  cotton,  and  cognate  topics.  At  that 
time  he  was  commissioner  of  the  revenue  at  Philadelphia,  and  his  whole  time 
was  devoted  to  the  investigation  of  the  subjects  of  national  industry  and  national 
prosperity.  In  1806,  he  published  an  essay  on  naval  power  and  the  encourage- 
ment of  manufactures.  The  following  year  he  published  a  memoir  on  the  culture 
and  manufacture  of  cotton,  and  this  was  followed  by  other  similar  productions, 
at  various  times,  until  his  death,  when  at  the  age  of  sixty-eight  years.  Tench 
Coxe  is  regarded  by  those  who  appreciate  his  usefulness,  as  a  national  bene- 
factor. 

4* 


82  JOHN   LEDYARD. 


JOHN    LED  YARD. 

rPHE  world  has  never  produced  a  more  indefatigable  traveller  and  explorer, 
L  than  John  Ledyard,  the  eldest  son  of  a  sea  captain,  who  resided  at  Groton, 
Connecticut.  There  John  was  born  in  1751.  His  father  died  while  he  was  yet 
a  lad;  and  after  his  mother  had  married  again,  he  was  taken  into  the  family  of 
his  grandfather,  at  Hartford,  and  treated  as  a  son.  His  guardian  died,  when 
John  was  about  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  he  entered  Dartmouth  College  as  a 
divinity  student.  He  became  dissatisfied,  and  resolved  to  leave  the  institution. 
He  had  already  been  a  wanderer  among  the  Five  Nations  in  New  York  for 
three  months,  and  had  tasted  the  pleasures  of  exciting  travel.  Having  no  money 
to  pay  travelling  expenses  to  Hartford,  he  constructed  a  canoe,  laid  in  "  sea 
stores  "  contributed  by  kind  friends,  and  all  alone  he  made  a  perilous  voyage 
down  the  winding  Connecticut  and  its  numerous  rapids,  to  Hartford,  a  distance 
of  one  hundred  and  forty  miles.  This  first  adventure  revealed  the  spirit  within. 
He  soon  made  his  way  to  New  London,  and  shipped  as  a  common  sailor,  for 
Gibraltar.  There  he  joined  the  army,  but  being  released,  he  made  his  way  back 
by  way  of  the  Barbary  coast  and  the  West  Indies,  in  1771.  He  then  sailed 
from  New  York  to  England,  where  he  entered  the  navy,  and  as  corporal  of 
marines,  accompanied  Captain  Cook  in  his  third  and  last  great  voyage.  Ever 
brave  and  resolute,  young  Ledyard  became  the  favorite  of  his  commander,  and 
he  was  frequently  intrusted  with  little  enterprises,  whiqh  required  skill  and 
courage.  lie  was  with  Cook  when  lie  was  killed  by  the  people  of  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  in  1778.  After  visiting  the  shores  of  Kamschatka,  the  expedition  re- 
turned to  England,  and  Ledyard  came  to  America.  He  arrived  after  an  absence 
of  eight  years,  and  took  lodgings  under  his  mother's  roof  at  Southold,  Long 
Island,  without  being  recognized  by  her,  for  some  hours.  The  war  of  the  Revo- 
lution was  then  in  progress,  and  Ledyard  could  not  consistently  remain  among 
the  enemies  of  his  country,  so  he  crossed  over  to  Connecticut,  joined  his  friends 
at  Hartford,  and  there  wrote  an  account  of  the  voyage  with  Captain  Cook.  » 

Ledyard  now  planned  a  voyage  to  the  north-west  coast  of  America,  but  re- 
ceived very  little  encouragement.  He  sailed  for  Cadiz,  thence  to  L'Orient,  and 
going  to  Paris,  he  had  an  interview  there  with  Mr.  Jefferson  and  La  Fayette. 
They  approved  of  his  projected  voyage,  for  commercial  purposes,  to  the  north- 
west coast,  and  Paul  Jones,  then  in  Paris,  entered  heartily  into  the  scheme. 
The  plan  failed,  however,  and  Ledyard  conceived  the  bold  project  of  making  a 
journey  by  land,  through  the  Russian  dominions,  to  Behring's  Straits,  by  way  of 
Kamschatka,  and  thus  reach  the  north-west  coast.  He  went  to  London,  and 
Sir  Joseph  Banks  and  other  scientific  gentlemen  contributed  funds  to  aid  him 
in  his  enterprise.  He  proceeded  to  Hamburg,  thence  to  Copenhagen  and  Stock- 
holm ;  and  without  a  companion  he  traversed  the  country  north  of  the  Gulf  of 
Bothnia,  under  the  Arctic  circle,  and  made  his  way  to  St.  Petersburg.  There 
he  procured  a  passport  from  the  Empress  Catharine,  and  started  for  Siberia,  over 
the  Ural  Mountains.  After  dreadful  hardships,  which  few  men  could  have  en- 
dured, he  reached  Yakutsk,  on  the  great  Lena  river,  six  thousand  miles  east- 
ward of  St.  Petersburg.  He  pushed  on  further  to  the  Kamschatkan  Sea,  but 
finding  much  ice,  he  returned  to  Yakutsk,  to  await  the  opening  of  Spring. 
There,  for  reasons  unknown  to  him,  he  was  suspected  of  being  a  spy,  and  was 
seized  by  two  Russian  soldiers,  in  the  name  of  the  Empress.  In  the  depth  of 
"Winter  he  was  conveyed  through  the  north  of  Tartary,  by  the  way  of  Moscow, 
to  the  confines  of  Poland,  and  there  his  conductors  wished  him  a  pleasant  jour- 
ney, and  told  him  he  would  be  hanged  if  he  entered  the  Russian  dominions 


CORNELIUS   HARNETT. 


again.  Ragged  and  penniless,  he  made  his  way  to  Konigsberg,  where  a  cor- 
respondent of  Sir  Joseph  Banks  gave  him  five  guineas,  with  which  he  proceeded 
to  England.  There  he  found  a  project  on  foot,  for  exploring  the  interior  of 
Africa.  Ledyard  at  once  engaged,  with  enthusiasm,  in  the  enterprise.  When 
one  of  the  managers  of  the  association,  which  had  been  formed  for  the  purpose, 
asked  Ledyard  how  soon  he  would  be  ready  to  start,  he  promptly  replied,  "  To- 
morrow morning."  After  writing  to  his  mother,  he  sailed  from  London,  in  June, 
1788,  reached  Cairo  on  the  19th  of  August,  and  then  prepared  to  penetrate  the 
interior.  He  joined  a  caravan  for  Sennaar,  and  was  on  the  point  of  departure, 
with  high  hopes,  when  he  was  attacked  by  a  bilious  fever,  which  terminated 
his  life  on  the  17th  of  January,  1789,  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven  years.  Led}^ard 
was  a  fluent  and  even  elegant  writer.  He  was  a  man  of  keen  observation,  and 
his  notes  of  travel,  truthful  in  the  extreme,  exhibited  tales  of  romantic  interest, 
such  as  the  brain  of  the  most  expert  writer  of  fiction  could  never  have  conceived. 
His  narrative  of  Captain  Cook's  voyage,  published  at  Hartford,  in  1783,  is  full 
of  exciting  interest.  From  his  papers  in  the  possession  of  his  relative,  Dr.  Isaac 
Ledyard,  Mr.  Sparks,  the  historian,  compiled  an  interesting  life  of  the  traveller, 
and  published  it  in  1828. 


CORNELIUS    HARNETT. 

ONE  of  the  chief  master  spirits  of  the  Revolution,  in  North  Carolina,  was  Cor- 
nelius Harnett,  of  Wilmington.  He  was  born  in  England  in  1723,  and 
came  to  America  in  early  life.  He  was  a  man  of  wealth  and  distinction  before 
the  disputes,  which  led  to  the  Revolution,  commenced ;  and  he  was  among  the 
earliest  of  the  Southern  patriots  to  denounce  the  Stamp  Act  and  kindred  meas- 
ures. In  1770  and  1771,  he  represented  the  borough  of  Wilmington  in  the 
colonial  legislature,  and  was  chairman  of  the  most  important  committees  of  that 
body.  In  conjunction  with  Robert  Howe  (afterward  a  general  in  the  Revolu- 
tion) and  Judge  Maurice  Moore,  Mr.  Harnett  was  appointed  by  the  Assembly 
to  draw  up  a  remonstrance  against  the  appointment  of  commissioners,  by  the  royal 
governor,  to  run  the  southern  boundary  of  the  province,  and  he  was  then  known 
as  one  of  the  firmest  Whigs1  in  all  the  South.  Josiah  Quincy,  the  young  and 
ardent  patriot  of  Boston,  visited  Mr.  Harnett  in  1773,  and  after  describing  the 
pleasures  of  a  visit  spent  with  him  and  Robert  Howe,  he  spoke  of  Harnett's 
unflinching  integrity,  and  called  him  "the  Samuel  Adams  of  North  Carolina." 
Toward  the  close  of  that  year,  Mr.  Harnett  was  made  chairman  of  the  committee 
of  correspondence,  of  Wilmington  District,  and,  throughout  the  Cape  Fear  region, 
he  was  the  master  spirit  of  the  storm  of  the  revolution,  as  it  gathered  and  burst 
over  the  country.  When  a  provincial  congress  was  called,  in  1775,  he  was  then 
the  representative  of  his  old  constituents ;  and  in  that  Congress  at  Halifax,  on  the 
Roanoke,  in  1776,  from  which  issued  the  first  official  voice  in  favor  of  the  inde-; 
pendence  of  the  colonies,  Cornelius  Harnett  was  a  bold  leader,  and  with  his  own 
hand  drew  up  those  noble  instructions  to  the  North  Carolina  delegates  in  the 
Continental  Congress.  When,  in  the  Spring  of  1776,  Sir  Henry  Clinton  appeared 
at  Cape  Fear,  with  a  British  fleet,  Harnett  and  Howe  were  honored  with  an 
exemption  from  the  terms  of  a  general  pardon,  because,  like  John  Hancock  and 
Samuel  Adams,  they  were  considered  arch^rebels,  When,  on  the  26th  of  July, 

1,  The  terms  Whig  and  Tory  were  copied  from  the  political  vocabulary  of  Great  Britain,  where  they 
originated  in  the  time  of  Charles  the  Second.  The  term  Whig  denoted  the  opposers  of  government,  and 
that  of  Tory  its  adherents.  In  that  relation  to  public  affairs,  they  were  first  used  in  America,  about  the 
year  1770.  The  Republicans  were  called  Whigs,  the  Loyalists,  Tories. 


84:  PEYTON   RANDOLPH. 


1776,  the  Declaration  of  Independence  arrived  at  Halifax,  Harnett  read  it  to 
the  people,  who,  when  he  had  finished  it,  took  him  upon  their  shoulders,  and 
bore  him  in  triumph  through  the  town.  In  the  Autumn,  he  drafted  a  State 
Constitution  and  Bill  of  Rights.  When,  under  that  constitution,  Richard  Cas- 
well  was  made  governor  of  the  new  State,  Harnett  was  one  of  his  council.  He 
was  afterward  a  member  of  the  Continental  Congress,  and  his  name  is  attached 
to  the  Articles  of  Confederation.1  When,  in  1780  and  1781,  the  British  took 
possession  of  the  country  around  the  Cape  Fear,  Harnett  was  made  a  prisoner, 
and  died  while  a  captive.  Upon  a  slab  of  brown  stone,  at  the  head  of  his  grave 
in  St.  James'  church- vard,  Wilmington,  is  the  simple  inscription — "CORNELIUS 
HARNETT.  Died  1781,  aged  fifty-eight  years." 


PEYTON    RANDOLPH. 

rPHE  chroniclers  of  ancient  dynasties  are  often  foiled  in  their  researches  con- 
JL  cerning  early  kings,  and  when  they  have  lost  the  clue  of  regular  descent, 
or  find  it  leading  back  into  the  domains  of  mere  myth,  they  conveniently  con- 
clude that  the  first  monarch  of  the  line  was  begotten  by  a  god.  We  have  no 
such  difficulty  in  this  great  republican  empire  of  the  West,  for  dynasties  change 
with  men,  and  eyes  are  yet  undimmed  which  saw  the  first  chief  magistrate  of 
this  free  nation.  He  was  a  Virginian — a  native  of  the  State  called  "the  mother 
of  presidents  " — and  his  name  was  Peyton  Randolph.  He  was  born  in  the  year 
1723,  and  was  a  descendant  of  one  of  the  oldest  of  the  aristocratic  families  of 
Virginia  who  boast  of  having  the  royal  blood  of  Powhatan2  in  their  veins. 

According  to  a  then  prevailing  custom,  young  Randolph  was  sent  to  England 
to  be  educated.  He  was  graduated  at  Oxford,  with  honor,  and  received  the  de- 
gree of  Master  of  Arts.  He  commenced  the  study  of  law  on  his  return  home; 
and  so  rapid  was  his  success  in  his  profession,  that  he  was  made  attorney-general 
of  the  colony  of  Virginia,  in  1756,  when  thirty- three  years  of  age.  At  that 
time,  the  French  and  Indian  War  was  progressing,  and  the  Indians,  incited  by 
the  French,  were  desolating  the  Virginia  frontier/  Narratives  of  these  outrages 
aroused  the  indignation  of  Mr.  Randolph,  and  collecting  a  hundred  men,  he  led 
them  to  the  borders  of  the  Indian  country,  and  taught  the  savages  some  terrible 
retributory  lessons.  Toward  the  close  of  that  contest,  Mr.  Randolph  was  elected 
to  a  seat  in  the  Virginia  Legislature,  and  he  often  presided  over  that  body. 
There  his  influence  was  very  great,  and  as  the  storm  of  the  Revolution  came  on 
apace,  his  voice  was  ever  heard  on  the  side  of  freedom. 

Mr.  Randolph  was  elected  a  delegate  to  the  first  Continental  Congress,  which 
assembled  in  Carpenter's  Hall,  Philadelphia,  on  the  5th  of  September,  1774. 
Charles  Thomson  recorded  on  that  day:  "The  Congress  proceeded  to  the  choice 
of  a  President,  when  the  Hon.  Peyton  Randolph,  Esq.,  was  unanimously  elected." 
This  vote  made  him  really  the  first  President  of  the  United  States,  for  then  and 
there  our  Union  had  its  birth.  He  was  again  chosen  President  when  another 
Congress  met  at  the  same  place,  in  May  following,  but  feeble  health  compelled 
him  to  resign  the  office,  fourteen  days  afterward,  when  John  Hancock  was 
chosen  to  fill  his  place.  Mr.  Randolph  resumed  his  seat  in  Congress  early  the 
following  Autumn;  and  on  the  22d  of  October,  1775,  he  died  at  Philadelphia, 
from  the  effects  of  apoplexy,  in  the  fifty-third  year  of  his  age. 

1.  These  formed  a  constitution  of  government  for  the  United  States,  until  1789,  -when  the  present 
Federal  Constitution  went  into  operation,  as  a  substitute. 

2.  See  sketch  of  Pocahontas. 


MERCY   WARREN. 


85 


/  ^  7  1> 


MERCY    WARREN. 

JAMES  OTIS  was  a  noble  actor  in  the  earlier  scenes  of  the  Revolution,  and 
his  beloved  sister,  Mercy,  equally  patriotic  in  her  more  limited  sphere,  was 
a  faithful  recorder  of  those  acts,  and  of  the  subsequent  events  which  led  to  the 
founding  of  our  republic.  She  was  the  third  child  of  Colonel  Otis,  of  Barnstable, 
Massachusetts,  and  was  born  there  on  the  25th  of  September,  1728.  As  eldest 
daughter,  much  of  her  childhood  and  youth  was  spent  in  domestic  employments, 
and  her  leisure  was  devoted  to  reading  and  study.  Her  opportunities  for  edu- 
cation were  limited,  but  she  found  a  never-failing  source  of  instruction  in  the 
conversation  and  the  library  of  Rev.  Jonathan  Russell,  the  parish  minister. 
There  she  read  Raleigh's  History  of  the  World,  and  that  gave  her  a  taste  for  such 
practical  and  important  knowledge.  Her  gifted  brother,  James,  was  also  her 
aid  and  adviser  in  literary  pursuits  ;  and  so  great  was  the  attachment  between 
them,  that  when  the  insanity  which  clouded  his  intellect,  at  the  last,  was  mani- 
fested by  ravings,  her  voice,  alone,  could  calm  his  spirit.  At  the  age  of  twenty- 
six  years,  Miss  Otis  became  the  wife  of  James  Warren,  a  merchant  of  Plymouth, 
and  a  man  of  congenial  mind  and  temper.  Her  life  passed  happily  in  alternate 
employments  in  domestic  duties,  in  needle-work,  and  in  the  use  of  the  pen  in 
prose  and  poetry,  until  the  gathering  storm  of  the  Revolution  disturbed  the  re- 
pose of  all  families.  Her  brother  was  then  uttering  his  noble  thoughts  in  tho 
senate  ;  and  she  too,  fired  with  patriotic  ardor,  labored  with  her  pen,  in  the  great 


WILLIAM   HEN11Y   DRAYTON. 


cause.  She  was  in  correspondence  with  most  of  the  controlling  spirits  of  that 
day,  and  her  political  opinions  were  consulted  by  many  who  gave  them  vital 
action  in  the  council  and  the  field.  Her  roof  was  always  a  free  shelter  to  patriots 
of  every  condition,  and  there  D'Estaing  and  other  French  officers  spent  many 
pleasant  and  instructive  hours.  In  1775,  was  published  her  satirical  drama,  in 
two  acts,  entitled  The  Group,  in  which  she  introduced  many  of  the  leading  Tory 
characters  of  the  day.  It  had  a  powerful  effect  at  the  time.  She  early  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  preparing  a  faithful  chronicle  of  the  war,  and  for  that  purpose 
she  kept  a  journal,  from  the  commencement  to  the  end.  After  the  war,  her 
poetical  pieces  were  collected  into  a  volume,  dedicated  to  General  Washington. 
It  contained  her  tragedies,  The  Sack  of  Rome,  and  The  Ladies  of  Castile.  The 
first  was  so  much  esteemed,  that  John  Adams,  then  United  States  minister  in 
London,  expressed  a  desire  to  have  it  performed  upon  the  stage  in  that  city, 
"before  crowded  houses,  for  the  honor  of  America."  Her  History  of  the  Revolu- 
tion was  published  at  Boston,  in  three  volumes,  in  1805,  though  completed  several 
years  before.  She  was  then  seventy-eight  years  of  age,  and  yet  possessed  much 
of  the  personal  grace  and  vivacity  of  mind,  mentioned  by  Rochefoucault,  who 
visited  her  seven  years  before.  The  preface,  written  at  that  time,  shows  remark- 
able mental  vigor.  Her  earnest  prayer  always  was,  to  be  spared  the  loss  of 
her  mental  faculties,  while  she  lived,  and  the  boon  was  vouchsafed.  When,  on 
the  19th  of  October,  1814,  her  spirit  took  its  flight,  her  reason  was  unclouded, 
though  its  earthly  tenement  was  almost  eighty-eight  years  of  age. 


WILLIAM    HENRY    DRAYTON. 

ONE  of  the  most  brilliant  and  promising  young  men  of  South  Carolina,  when 
the  revolutionary  contest  began,  was  Judge  Drayton,  a  scion  of  one  of  the 
oldest  and  best  distinguished  cavalier  families  of  the  South.  He  was  a  nephew 
of  Governor  Bull,  and  was  born  in  September,  1742.  For  about  eleven  years 
he  was  a  student  at  Windsor  and  Oxford,  in  England ;  and  on  his  return  to 
South  Carolina,  he  prepared  for  the  profession  of  the  law.  He  went  to  England 
again  in  1771,  and  there  published  the  discussions  between  the  friends  and  op- 
ponents of  the  government,  in  Charleston.  He  was  introduced  at  court,  and 
being  fully  impressed  with  the  belief  that  Great  Britain  would  speedily  redress 
the  grievances  of  the  colonists,  he  accepted  the  appointment  of  a  seat  in  the 
royal  governors  council.  Being  soon  undeceived,  he  opposed  government  meas- 
ures with  great  energy,  and  was  finally  dismissed  for  his  contumacy. 

In  September,  1774,  Mr.  Drayton  published  a  pamphlet,  addressed  to  the 
Continental  Congress,  in  which  the  grievances  of  the  Americans  were  clearly 
stated,  and  an  able  Bill  of  Rights  presented.  He  yet  held  the  position  of  one 
of  his  majesty's  justices,  to  which  he  had  been  appointed  in  1771,  and  was  the 
only  native-born  citizen  who  had  ever  been  honored  with  that  office.  He  re- 
tained his  position  until  the  Spring  of  1775,  when  the  royal  judges  made  their 
last  circuit.  During  the  following  Summer  he  labored  manfully  in  the  cause  of 
freedom,  as  President  of  the  Provincial  Congress  of  South  Carolina ;  and  in  the 
Autumn,  when  the  British  sloops  of  war,  Tamar  and  Cherokee,  menaced  Charles- 
ton with  bombardment,  because  of  the  rebellious  movements  of  its  citizens,  he 
was  appointed,  by  the  committee  of  safety,  to  the  command  of  the  armed  ship, 
Prosper,  employed  to  oppose  them.  Commodore  Drayton  returned  their  fire 
promptly  several  times,  and  thus  actual  hostilities  at  the  South  commenced. 


JOHN  ADAMS.  87 


In  March,  1776,  Judge  Drayton  was  chosen  chief  justice  of  the  then  revolted 
colony  of  South  Carolina,  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  his  Whig  countrymen ;  and 
his  admirable  charge  to  the  grand  jury,  delivered  a  month  afterward,  was  hailed 
throughout  the  land  as  one  of  the  noblest  expressions  of  patriotic  public  senti- 
ment yet  uttered.  It  placed  the  author  in  the  same  honorable  position  as  John 
Hancock  and  Samuel  Adams,  of  Massachusetts,  who  were  denounced  as  arch- 
traitors.  From  that  time,  until  the  close  of  his  career,  he  was  regarded  as  one 
of  the  chief  leaders  of  the  rebellion  in  the  South,  and  yet  he  found  time  to 
chronicle,  in  minute  detail,  the  preliminary  and  current  events  of  the  great 
struggle.  He  became  a  member  of  the  Continental  Congress,  and  died  suddenly 
while  in  the  discharge  of  his  legislative  duties,  in  Philadelphia,  on  the  3d  of 
September,  1779,  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven  years.  "A  Memoir  of  the  American 
Revolution,  from  its  commencement  to  the  year  1776,"  prepared  by  Judge  Drayton, 
was  revised  and  published  by  his  son,  Governor  John  Drayton,  in  1821. 


JOHN    ADAMS. 

IN  our  Republic,  where  offices  and  titles  are  not  hereditary,  it  is  seldom  that 
father  and  son  both  occupy  the  same  post  of  honor;  and  it  is  still  more 
rare,  in  any  country,  for  both  to  be  equally  distinguished  for  talent  and  useful- 
ness, as  in  the  case  of  the  elder  and  younger  Adams.  They  both  occupied  im- 
portant diplomatic  stations,  and  both  became  chief  magistrate  of  the  United 
States.  John  Adams,  the  elder,  was  born  at  Braintree,  Massachusetts,  on  the 
30th  of  October,  1735,  and  was  a  lineal  descendant  of  one  who  fled  to  America, 
to  avoid  the  persecutions  of  Laud,  during  the  reign  of  Charles  the  First.  His 
maternal  ancestor  was  John  Alden,  of  the  May  Flower,  and  thus  he  was  an  in- 
heritor of  a  love  of  freedom.  He  received  a  primary  education  at  a  common 
school  in  Braintree,  and  there  he  was  prepared  for  a  scholarship  in  Harvard 
College,  where  he  was  graduated  at  the  age  of  twenty  years.  The  law  was  his 
chosen  profession ;  and  under  Mr.  Putnam,  of  Worcester,  he  made  rapid  progress, 
not  only  in  that  study,  but  in  the  acquirement  of  general  information,  for  he 
there  had  the  free  use  of  an  extensive  library,  belonging  to  Mr.  Gridley,  the 
attorney-general  of  Massachusetts.  The  value  of  such  a  fountain  of  knowledge, 
to  him,  was  soon  apparent;  and  when,  in  1758,  he  commenced  the  practice  of 
law  at  Braintree,  he  gave  ample  assurance  of  speedy  eminence,  both  as  a  pro- 
fessional and  a  public  man.  He  was  admitted  as  a  barrister,  in  1761,  and  at 
the  same  time  took  part  with  Otis  and  others  in  denunciations  of  Writs  of  As- 
sistance. When  the  tempest  raised  in  America  by  the  Stamp  Act  was  at  its 
height,  Mr.  Adams  wrote  and  published  his  famous  Essay  on  the  Canon  and 
feudal  Law,  which  at  once  placed  him  high  the  public  esteem. 

Mr.  Adams  married  in  1766,  and  soon  afterward  made  Boston  his  place  of 
residence.  There  he  took  front  rank  with  the  political  agitators,  and  was  one 
of  the  most  prudent,  yet  decided  of  the  popular  leaders.1  In  1770,  he  was  elected 
to  a  seat  in  the  Massachusetts  Assembly;  and  in  1774,  he  was  chosen  one  of 
five  to  represent  that  province  in  the  First  Continental  Congress.  He  was  again 
elected  to  the  same  office  in  1775,  and  nominated  Georgo  Washington  for  the 
important  station  of  commander-in-chief  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States.  On 

1.  His  popularity  was  put  to  the  severest  test  in  1770,  when  Captain  Preston,  and  some  of  his  soldiers 
who  had  fired  upon  a  mob  and  killed  three  people  [see  note  on  page  59],  were  tried  for  murder.  Adams, 
in  the  face  of  greatly-excited  public  opinion,  consented,  as  a  lawyer,  to  defend  Preston,  and  he  was 
acquitted.  The  faith  of  the  people,  in  Adams,  was  so  unwavering,  that  this  seeming  treason  to  their 
cause  did  not  lesson  his  character  in  their  esteem. 


JOHN  ADAMS. 


the  Gth  of  May,  1776,  he  offered  a  resolution,  in  Congress,  equivalent  to  a  dec- 
laration of  independence,  and  when  that  subject  assumed  a  more  definite  form, 
soon  afterward,  he  was  one  of  the  ablest  advocates  of  the  measure.  His  signa- 
ture was  affixed  to  the  great  instrument  which  declared  the  colonies  "free  and 
independent  States."  Mr.  Adams  labored  on  assiduously  in  Congress,1  until 
appointed,  by  that  body,  to  fill  the  place  of  Silas  Deane  at  the  French  court. 
Franklin  had  done  all  the  necessary  diplomatic  work,  and  Mr.  Adams  returned 
in  1779.  He  then  assisted  in  framing  a  state  constitution  for  Massachusetts,  and 
while  thus  employed,  was  appointed  a  minister  plenipotentiary  to  negotiate  a 
peace,  and  form  a  commercial  treaty,  with  Great  Britain.  He  was  very  active 
while  abroad,  and  at  one  time  was  intrusted  with  no  less  than  six  missions.2 
In  1781,  he  was  associated  with  Franklin,  Jay,  and  Laurens,  in  various  nego- 
tiations, and  was  the  first  of  the  American  commissioners  who  signed  the  defin- 
itive treaty  of  peace,  with  Great  Britain,  in  1783.  He  was  the  first  United 
States  minister  to  the  British  court,  and  did  not  return  home  until  1788.  He 
was  elected  the  first  vice-president  of  the  United  States,  under  the  Federal 

1.  In  the  course  of  the  eighteen  months  preceding  his  departure  for  Europe,  Mr.  Adams  had  been  on 
ninety  different  comrnittees,  and  was  chairman  of  twenty-five  of  them. 

2.  To  treat  for  peace  with  Great  Britain  ;  to  make  a  commercial  treaty  with  Great  Britain  ;  to  nego- 
tiate the  same  with  the  States  General  of  Holland  ;  the  same  with  the  Prince  of  Oranpre  ;  to  pledge  the 
faith  of  the  United  States  to  the  Armed  Neutrality  ;  and  to  negotiate  a  loan  of  ten  millions  of  dollars. 


WILLIAM  RICHARDSON  DAVIE.  80 

Constitution,  in  1789,  and  in  1796,  he  was  elevated  to  the  presidential  chair.  At 
the  close  of  his  term,  in  1801,  he  retired  from  public  life,  but  lived  to  see  his 
son  occupy  the  chair  of  chief  magistrate,  twenty -four  years  afterward.  In  1824, 
he  was  chosen  president  of  the  Massachusetts  convention  for  revising  the  state 
constitution,  which  he  assisted  in  forming  forty-five  years  before,  but  he  declined 
the  honor.  His  powers  of  life  were  then  failing;  and  on  the  4th  of  July,  1826, 
he  expired,  with  the  words  "  Independence  forever !"  upon  his  lips,  in  the  ninety- 
second  year  of  his  age.1 


WILLIAM    RICHARDSON    DAVIE. 

WHEN"  the  first  thunder-peal  of  the  Revolution  rolled  over  the  South,  hun- 
dreds of  her  gallant  sons  seized  their  arms,  and  rushed  to  the  field ;  and 
many,  who  were  living  in  obscurity,  then  burst  the  chrysalis  of  comparative  in- 
significance and  became  honored  leaders  of  the  popular  mind.  Among  these 
was  William  Richardson  Davie.  He  was  born  at  Egremont,  near  White  Haven, 
England,  on  the  20th  of  June,  1756.  His  father  brought  him  to  America  when 
he  was  a  small  child,  and  on  his  return,  left  him  with  his  maternal  uncle,  Rev. 
William  Richardson,  of  South  Carolina.  At  a  proper  age,  he  was  placed  under 
the  care  of  Dr.  Witherspoon,  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey,  at  Princeton,  where 
he  was  graduated  in  1776,  a  few  weeks  before  Washington  and  his  broken  army 
passed  through  there,  in  their  flight  toward  the  Delaware. 

Young  Davie  returned  to  North  Carolina,  full  of  patriotic  fire,  and  resolved  on 
becoming  a  soldier.  He  could  not  then  obtain  a  commission,  so  he  went  to 
Salisbury  and  studied  law,  supposing  the  war  would  not  continue  many  months. 
But  as  the  clouds  thickened,  young  Davie  became  restive,  and  he  induced  a 
popular  friend  to  raise  a  troop  of  dragoons,  of  which  the  fledgling  hero  was  made 
lieutenant.  They  marched  toward  Charleston,  and  the  command  devolving  on 
Lieutenant  Davie,  he  procured  the  attachment  of  his  corps  to  the  legion  of  Count 
Pulaski.  In  that  capacity  he  fought  at  Stono  Ferry,  in  June,  1779,  where  he 
was  so  badly  wounded  that  he  was  confined  for  five  months  in  a  hospital. 

In  1780,  Davie  was  placed  at  the  head  of  a  legionary  corps,  with  a  commission 
of  major  from  the  governor  of  North  Carolina.  He  spent  the  last  shilling  of  a 
bequest  made  by  his  lately-deceased  uncle  and  guardian,  in  equipping  this  corps, 
and  then  went  to  the  field  to  oppose  the  progress  of  the  British  troops  toward 
the  interior  of  the  Carolinas.  He  nobly  aided  Sumter  in  his  operations  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  Catawba,  early  in  August,  and  was  hastening  to  join  the  army  of 
Gates,  when  it  was  defeated  and  dispersed  near  Camden.  He  was  afterward  with 
Rutherford  at  Ramsour's  Mills,  and  nobly  confronted  the  enemy  at  Charlotte, 
after  a  brilliant  display  of  courage  and  skill  at  Wahab's  Plantation.  For  his 
services  during  that  campaign,  he  was  rewarded  with  the  commission  of  colonel 
commandant  of  the  cavalry  of  North  Carolina. 

When  Greene  took  command  of  the  southern  army,  he  appointed  Colonel  Davie 
his  commissary-general.  In  all  the  important  operations  which  followed,  Davie 
was  exceedingly  efficient ;  and  at  the  trying  hour  at  Ninety-Six,  in  the  'Summer 
of  1781,  Greene  sent  Colonel  Davie  to  present  the  condition  of  his  army  to  the 
legislature  of  North  Carolina.  He  performed  the  service  well ;  and  prospects 

1.  Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Jefferson  both  expired  on  the  same  day,  and  at  almost  the  same  hour.  They 
were  both  on  the  committee  that  framed  the  Declaration  of  Independence  ;  both  voted  for  that  instru- 
ment just  fifty  years  before  ;  both  signed  it :  both  had  been  foreign  ministers  ;  and  bo*h  had  been  Pres- 
ident of  the '  Republic  they  had  helped  to  establish.  The  coincidence  of  their  deaths  was  therefore 
quite  remarkable. 


90  EGBERT   MORRIS. 


of  peace  appearing  in  the  Autumn,  he  left  the  army,  married  a  daughter  of 
General  Allen  Jones,  in  1783,  and  in  the  town  of  Halifax,  on  the  Roanoke,  com- 
menced the  practice  of  law.  In  that  pursuit  he  soon  became  eminent,  and  was 
chosen  a  delegate  to  the  convention  which  framed  the  Federal  Constitution.  In 
1797,  he  was  commissioned  a  major-general  of  militia,  and  the  next  year,  he  was 
appointed  a  brigadier  in  the  army  of  the  United  States.  In  1798,  he  was  elected 
governor  of  the  State  of  North  Carolina,  and  was  soon  afterward  appointed,  by 
President  Adams,  an  associate  envoy  extraordinary  to  France,  with  Ellsworth 
and  Murray.  After  his  return,  he  went  to  reside  at  Tivoli,  a  beautiful  estate  on 
the  Catawba  river,  in  South  Carolina.  His  wife  died  in  1803,  and  he  remained 
in  retirement  until  his  own  death,  which  occurred  at  Tivoli,  in  December,  1820, 
when  he  was  in  the  sixty -fourth  year  of  his  age.  General  Davie  was  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  North  Carolina  University,  at  Chapel  Hill.  He  was  chiefly  in- 
strumental in  procuring  the  erection  of  the  buildings  for  that  institution ;  and, 
as  grand  master  of  the  masonic  fraternity,  he  laid  the  corner-stone. 


ROBERT    MORRIS. 

IT  is  an  often  demonstrated  truth,  that  "money  is  the  sinew  of  war."  It  was 
eminently  so  during  the  revolutionary  struggle,  when  its  strength  and  use- 
fulness in  the  cause  of  freedom,  were  controlled  by  Robert  Morris,  a  wealthy 
and  influential  merchant  of  Philadelphia.  He  was  born  in  Lancashire,  England, 
in  January,  1733.  His  father  was  a  Liverpool  merchant  extensively  engaged 
in  the  American  trade,  who  came  to  America  in  1744,  and  settled  on  the  eastern 
shore  of  Chesapeake  Bay.  His  son,  Robert,  with  his  grandmother,  followed  in 
1746,  and  was  placed  in  a  school  in  Philadelphia,  where  an  inefficient  teacher 
wasted  his  time  and  patience.1  In  1749,  young  Morris  was  placed  in  the  count- 
ing-room of  Charles  Willing,  of  Philadelphia ;  and  on  the  death  of  his  employer, 
in  1754,  he  entered  into  a  partnership  with  that  gentleman's  son,  which  con- 
tinued thirty-nine  years.  That  firm  soon  became  the  most  wealthy  and  exten- 
sive among  the  importers  of  Philadelphia,  and  consequently  they  were  the  heaviest 
losers  by  the  non-importation  agreements,2  which  gave  such  a  deadly  blow  at 
the  infant  commerce  of  the  colonies,  after  the  passage  of  the  Stamp  Act.  Yet 
they  patriotically  joined  the  league,  and  made  the  sacrifice  for  the  good  of  the 
cause  of  right. 

In  November,  1775,  Mr.  Morris  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Continental  Con- 
gress,3 where  his  exceeding  great  usefulness  was  soon  discovered.  Its  appreci- 
ation was  manifested  by  placing  him  upon  committees,  having  in  charge  the 
"ways  and  means"  for  carrying  on  the  war.  In  the  Spring  of  1776,  he  was 
chosen,  by  Congress,  a  special  commissioner  to  negotiate  bills  of  exchange,  and 
to  take  other  measures  to  procure  money  for  government.  At  that  time,  no 
man's  credit,  in  America,  for  wealth  and  honor,  stood  higher  than  that  of  Robert 
Morris.  He  was  again  elected  to  Congress  after  the  Declaration  of  Independence 

1.  On  one  occasion  Robert's  father  censured  him  for  his  tardiness  in  learning.    His  reply  and  excuse 
wove,  "Why,  sir,  I  have  learned  all  that  the  master  could  teach  me." 

2.  One  of  the  measures  adopted  by  the  colonists  to  compel  Great  Britain  to  do  them  justice,  was  that 
of  American  merchants  everywhere  agreeing  not  to  import  any  more  poods  from  the  mother  country, 
until  all  obnoxious  acts  should  be  repealed.     These  leagues,  recommended  by  the  Continental  Congress 
in  1774,  and  generally  subscribed  to,  had  a  powerful  effect  on  Parliament,  for  in  the  Lower  House  (Com- 
mons) (he  mercantile  interest  had  a  potential  representation. 

3.  When  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Lexington  reached  Philadelphia,  Mr.  Morris  and  some  friends,  mem- 
bers of  the  St.  Geo'-ge's  Society,  were  celebrating  their  anniversary.     There  the  subject  was  discussed, 
and  Morris  and  a  few  others,  by  solemn  vow,  dedicated  themselves  to  the  cause  of  the  Revolution. 


ROBERT   MORRIS. 


91 


had  been  adopted,  and  being  favorable  to  that  measure,  he  signed  the  document, 
with  most  of  the  others,  on  the  second  day  of  August  following.  Toward  the 
close  of  that  year,  when  the  half-naked,  half-famished  American  army  were  about 
to  cease  the  struggle,  in  despair,  he  evinced  hie  faith  in  the  success  of  the  con- 
flict, and  his  own  warm  patriotism,  by  loaning  for  the  government,  on  his  own 
responsibility,  ten  thousand  dollars.1  It  gave  food  and  clothing  to  the  gallant 
little  band  under  Washington,  who  achieved  the  noble  victory  at  Trenton,  and 
a  new  and  powerful  impetus  was  thereby  given  to  the  Revolution. 

Mr.  Morris  was  continually  active  in  the  great  cause  during  the  whole  of  the 
war.  He  fitted  out  many  privateers.  Some  were  lost,  others  were  successful 
in  bringing  him  rich  prizes ;  and  at  the .  return  of  peace  he  estimated  that  his 
losses  and  gains  were  about  equal.  In  May,  1781  about  the  gloomiest  period 
of  the  struggle,  Mr.  Morris  submitted  to  Congress  a  plan  for  a  National  Bank. 
It  was  approved,  and  the  Bank  of  North  America,  with  Robert  Morris  as  its 
soul,  was  established,  and  became  a  very  efficient  fiscal  agent.  He  was  assisted 
by  Gouverneur  Morris ;  and  through  the  active  agency,  in  financial  matters,  of 
these  gentlemen,  much  of  the  success  which  resulted  in  the  capture  of  Cornwallis, 


1.  "  I  want  money,"  said  Morris  to  a  Quaker  friend,  "  for  the  use  of  the  army."  "  What  security 
canst  thou  give?"  asked  the  lender.  "  My  note  a'nd  my  honor,-'  responded  Morris.  "  Robert,  thou 
shalt  have  it,"  was  the  prompt  reply. 


92  FRANCIS  DANA. 


at  Yorktown,  must  be  attributed.1  During  that  year  Mr.  Morris  accepted  the 
office  of  Financial  Agent  (Secretary  of  the  Treasury)  of  the  United  States.  After 
the  war,  he  was  twice  a  member  of  the  Pennsylvania  Legislature,  and  he  was 
one  of  the  framers  of  the  Federal  Constitution.  He  was  a  senator  in  the  first 
Congress  convened  under  that  instrument ;  and  "Washington  appointed  him  his 
first  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  He  declined  the  office,  and  named  Alexander 
Hamilton  as  more  capable,  than  himself;  to  perform  the  duties.  At  the  close  of 
his  senatorial  term,  Mr.  Morris  retired  from  public  life,  not  so  rich  in  money,  by 
half,  as  when  he  entered  the  arena.  Soon  the  remainder  of  his  large  fortune 
was  lost  by  speculations  in  wild  land,  in  the  western  part  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  afterward  purchased  by  an  association  known  as  The  Holland  Land  Com- 
pany. On  the  8th  of  May,  1806,  Robert  Morris,  the  great  Financier  of  the 
Revolution,  died  in  comparative  poverty,  at  the  age  of  a  little  more  than  seventy- 
three  years. 


FRANCIS    DANA. 

MASSACHUSETTS  is  pre-eminent  among  the  States  in  the  production  of  dis- 
tinguished men.  Prominent  among  those  of  whom  she  may  be  justly 
proud,  is  the  name  of  Francis  Dana,  who  was  born  at  Charlestown,  near  Boston, 
in  August,  1742.  He  was  educated  at  Harvard  University,  and  chose  the  law 
as  his  profession.  In  the  midst  of  the  confusion  and  distress  incident  to  the 
closing  of  the  port  of  Boston,  by  parliamentary  decree,  in  1774,-  Mr.  Dana  went 
to  England,  and  passed  a  year  with  his  brother,  a  clergyman,  at  "Wroxeter.  He 
returned  to  America  at  the  close  of  1775,  took  an  active  port,  as  a  patriot,  in 
the  exciting  political  proceedings  of  the  time,  and  in  the  Autumn  of  1776,  was 
elected  a  delegate  to  the  Continental  Congress.  In  that  important  station  he 
remained  until  November,  1779,  when  ho  accompanied  John  Adams  to  Paris,  as 
Secretary  of  Legation.  • 

Toward  the  close  of  1780,  Congress  appointed  Mr.  Dana  minister  plenipoten- 
tiary at  the  court  of  Russia.  The  Empress  Catherine  would  not  openly  receive 
him,  for  fear  of  offending  England,  but  he  was  allowed  to  remain  in  St.  Peters- 
burg until  the  close  of  the  war,  when  he  returned  home,  and  was  immediately 
chosen  a  delegate  to  the  Congress  of  1784.  Mr.  Dana  was  an  efficient  advocate 
of  the  Federal  Constitution,  in  th.e  Massachusetts  convention,  and  exerted  great 
influence  in  the  political  affairs  of  his  State.  President  Adams  appreciated  his 
worth,  and  offered  him  the  office  of  envoy  extraordinary  to  France,  with  Messrs. 
Marshall  and  Pinckney,  in  1797.  He  declined  the  honor,  and  EJbridge  Gerry, 
one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  accepted  it.  Mr.  Dana 
had  then  held  the  important  office  of  chief  justice  of  Massachusetts,  for  five  years, 
to  which  he  had  been  appointed  by  President  Washington.  He  retained  his 
seat  on  the  bench  until  1806,  when  he  retired  to  private  life,  but  not  to  a  life  of 
inaction.  He  was  a  thorough  Federalist;  and  during  the  exciting  political 
period,  from  the  election  of  Jefferson  in  1800,  until  his  death,  his  pen  was  often 
busy.  Judge  Dana  died  at  his  residence  in  Cambridge,  near  Boston,  on  the 
25th  of  April,  1811,  at  the  age  of  sixty-eight  years. 

1.  The  Bank  of  North  America  did  not  go  into  operation  until  December,  1781.     Yet  Morris,  on  his 
own  personal  responsibility,  was  acting  as  efficiently  as  the  bank  could  then  have  done,  in  providing 
funds  for  the  American  army  under  Washington,  in  making  its  successful  expedition  into  Virginia. 

2.  In  consequence  of  the  destruction  of  two  cargoes  of  tea  in  Boston  Harbor,  in  December,  1773,  and 
other  rebellious  movements,  the  British  parliament  ordered  the  port  of  that  city  to  be  closed,  and  all  its 
public  offices  to  be  removed.     This  blow  at  the  business  of  that  thriving  town,  was  a  retaliatory  meas- 
ure, and  produced  great  irritation  throughout  the  colonies. 


JOHN   FITCH. 


JOHN    FITCH. 

THE  records  of  human  inventions  are  full  of  instances  of  originators  being 
deprived  of  the  honors  and  emoluments  due  to  them.  John  Fitch,  an  early 
applicant  of  steam  power  to  the  propulsion  of  boats,  is  a  remarkable  instance  of 
that  kind.  He  was  born  between  Hartford  and  Windsor,1  in  Connecticut,  on  the 
21st  of  January,  1743.  At  the  age  of  eight  years,  he  was  taken  from  school, 
and  put  to  labor  on  a  farm ;  after  which  he  had  but  one  month  in  each  year  to 
devote  to  study  under  instruction.  But  most  of  the  leisure  moments  of  child- 
hood were  employed  with  his  books ;  and  at  the  age  of  eleven  years,  he  planted 
and  raised  some  potatoes,  for  the  express  purpose  of  purchasing  a  complete 
Geography.  His  health  was  naturally  feeble,  and  he  appears  to  have  been 
overworked  on  the  farm.  He  ran  away  from  home,  and  was  afterward  appren- 
ticed to  a  clock-maker.  He  learned  the  business  imperfectly,  and  abandoned 
it  at  his  majority,  for  that  of  a  brass-founder.  He  married  a  young  lady,  in  1767, 
but  incompatibility  of  temper  and  views  caused  them  to  separate  at  the  end  of 
two  years.  They  had  two  children,  but  a  reconciliation  never  took  place,  and 
the  cloud  always  deeply  shadowed  his  path  of  life. 

Mr.  Fitch  was  a  silversmith  in  Trenton,  New  Jersey,  when  the  British  army 
entered  it,  and  destroyed  his  shop  and  contents,  in  the  Winter  of  1776,  because 
he  was  engaged  in  repairing  American  arms.  He  joined  the  army,  and  was 
with  Washington  at  Valley  Forge.  There  he  heard  some  officers  speak  of  the 
fertility  of  Kentucky.  He  procured  the  appointment  of  deputy  surveyor,  and  in 
the  Spring  of  1780,  set  out  on  foot,  for  that  untraversed  wilderness  beyond  the 
Alleghanies.  He  returned  to  Philadelphia  the  following  year,  the  owner  of  six- 
teen hundred  acres  of  fine  land  in  the  Ohio  Valley,  and  filled  with  dreams  of  future 
opulence.  Again  he  started  for  the  great  West,  and  while  descending  the  Ohio, 
with  some  others,  in  the  Spring  of  1782,  he  was  made  a  prisoner  by  the  Indians, 
where  Marietta  now  stands.  He  was  redeemed  from  captivity,  at  Detroit,  by  a 
British  officer,  went  to  Canada,  and  returning  to  Pennsylvania,  he  constructed  a 
map  of  the  Western  Country.  He  now  conceived  the  idea  of  "gaining  a  force 
by  steam;"  and  in  August,  1785,  he  presented  the  subject  to  the  Continental 
Congress,  and  asked  for  aid  to  try  experiments  in  applying  the  power  to  the 
propulsion  of  vessels,  by  means  of  wheels  or  paddles.  At  about  this  time,  Mr. 
Rumsey,  of  Virginia,  had  conceived  a  similar  idea,  and  Mr.  Fitch,  disappointed 
and  exasperated  by  what  he  deemed  the  stupidity  of  Congress,  went  from  State 
to  State,  in  search  of  aid,  but  without  success.  He  engaged  in  a  bitter  contro- 
versy with  Rurnsey,  in  relation  to  priority  of  invention ;  and  in  the  meanwhile, 
new  claimants  appeared.  Yet  all  seemed  to  have  distinct  plans,  with  identical 
aim — the  moving  of  a  boat  by  means  of  steam-power.  Fitch  and  Rumsey  pro- 
cured protective  statutes  from  different  State  legislatures.  The  former  organ- 
ized a  stock  company,  to  carry  out  his  designs,  in  1786,  but  little  was  effected 
by  it.  The  State  of  Pennsylvania  refused  to  lend  him  one  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds,  to  procure  an  engine  from  England.  With  another  mechanic,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  constructing  an  engine  and  boat;  and  on  the  1st  of  May,  1789,  the 
first  steamboat  was  seen  moving  upon  the  waters  of  the  Delaware.  The  boat 
went  at  the  rate  of  eight  miles  an  hour,  and  yet  there  was  not  confidence  enough 
in  the  project,  to  sustain  the  persevering  inventor.  To  him  success  was  as 
"clear  as  any  problem  in  Euclid;"  and  in  a  letter  to  Franklin,  he  expressed  his 
full  belief  that  "steamboats  would  answer  for  sea  voyages,  as  well  as  inland  naviga- 


1.  The  house  in  which  he  was  born  stood  upon  the  dividing  line  of  those  towns,  and  it  is  said  that  hi 
irth  occurred  in  the  Windsor  portion  of  the  dwelling. 


94  JOHN   ALEXANDER   LLLLINGTON. 

tion"  Despairing  of  gaining  funds  to  perfect  his  invention,  in  America,  Fitch 
went  to  France  and  England,  in  1792;  but,  disappointed  and  almost  penniless, 
he  returned  home,  and  retired  to  Kentucky.  He  found  a  good  deal  of  his  land 
occupied;  and  in  1797,  he  commenced  ejectment  suits.  Soon  after  this  his  mind 
and  body  began  to  give  way  under  the  pressure  of  long-continued  excitements, 
and,  though  temperate  through  life,  he  determined  to  shorten  his  days  by  the 
excessive  use  of  spirituous  liquors.  He  foretold  the  time  of  his  death  by  a 
mathematical  calculation,  and  on  the  2d  of  July,  1798,  he  died  at  Bardstown, 
Kentucky,  and  was  buried  there.  Had  his  countrymen  appreciated  his  inven- 
tions, and  sustained  his  efforts,  the  glory  awarded  to  Fulton  would  doubtless 
have  been  due  to  John  Fitch,  full  twenty  years  earlier  than  the  success  of  the 
former  established  his  own  fame. 


JOHN    ALEXANDER    LILLINGTON. 

rE  Cape  Fear  region  of  North  Carolina  abounded  with  true  Republicans, 
when  the  party  lines  between  Whigs  and  Tories  were  distinctly  drawn, 
just  before  the  war  of  the  Revolution  was  lighted  up.  John  A.  Lillington  was 
one  of  the  truest  stamp.  He  was  the  son  of  a  British  military  officer,  who  was  a 
member  of  the  royal  council  of  Barbadoes,  in  1698.  His  son  John,  captivated 
by  the  glowing  accounts  given  of  North  Carolina,  emigrated  thither,  and  settled 
within  the  present  limits  of  New  Hanover  county;  and  in  1734,  built  a  fine 
mansion  there,  which  he  called  Lillington  Hall.  It  stands  on  the  north  branch 
of  the  Cape  Fear  river,  about  thirty  miles  from  "Wilmington.  The  proprietor 
inherited  the  military  tastes  of  his  father ;  and  when  the  notes  of  preparation 
for  the  Revolution  were  heard  all  over  the  land,  his  skill  was  brought  into  re- 
quisition. He  was  also  a  member  of  the  Wilmington  committee  of  safety  in 
1775 ;  and  when  the  Scotch  Highlanders  and  others  in  the  vicinity  of  Cross  Creek 
(Fayetteville),  took  up  arms  for  the  king,  under  Donald  McDonald,  in  the  Winter 
of  1776,  Colonel  Lillington  commanded  one  of  the  provincial  corps  which  marched 
against,  and  defeated  them,  at  Moore's  Creek,  under  the  general  command  of 
Colonel  Caswell.  It  was  the  initial  battle  of  the  Revolution  in  the  South,  and 
the  victory  was  hailed  with  delight.  Colonel  Lillington  was  made  a  brigadier ; 
and  from  that  time,  until  the  approach  of  Gates,  in  1780,  he  was  active  in  the 
council  and  field.  Both  he  and  his  son  joined  the  army  of  Gates,  and  partici- 
pated in  the  disgrace  of  defeat  at  Camden. 

General  Lillington  remained  in  service  until  the  close  of  the  war,  when  he 
withdrew  from  public  life,  and  sought  repose  in  the  bosom  of  his  family  at  Lil- 
lington Hall.  There  appears  to  be  no  record  of  the  birth  or  death  of  General 
Lillington.  The  slab  over  his  grave,  near  his  mansion,  has  an  appropriate  in- 
scription, but  it  bears  no  date,  except  that  of  his  battle  at  Moore's  Creek.  It 
tells  us,  however,  that  "To  intellectual  powers  of  a  high  order,  he  united  incor- 
ruptible integrity,  devoted  and  self-sacrificing  patriotism."  Tradition  avers,  that 
he  possessed  a  frame  of  Herculean  proportions  and  strength,  and  that,  in  his 
generous  kindness  to  all  around  him,  must  we  find  the  reason  of  the  salvation 
of  Lillington  Hall  from  the  flames,  when  all  others  in  the  neighborhood  were 
desolated.  The  Tories  loved  him  for  his  goodness  of  heart;  the  Whigs  revered 
him  for  his  stern  patriotism. 


JOHN   PAUL  JONES. 


95 


JOHN    PAUL   JONES. 

O  OMEWHERE,  in  the  great  city  of  Paris,  rest  the  remains  of  one  of  the  bravest 
O  naval  commanders  known  in  history,  but,  like  the  sepulchre  of  General 
Greene,  its  identity  is  lost  to  this  generation,  and  the  reproach  of  that  oblivion 
rests  upon  the  government  of  the  United  States.  John  Paul  Jones  is  the  naval 
hero  of  the  elder  war  for  American  independence;  and,  like  many  of  the  patriots 
of  that  struggle,  whom  we  delight  to  honor,  he  was  born  beyond  the  Atlantic. 
His  birth  occurred  on  the  6th  of  July,  1747,  at  Arbigland,  on  the  Frith  of  Sol- 
way,  Scotland.  At  the  age  of  twelve  years  he  was  apprenticed  to  a  ship-master 
in  the  Virginia  trade.  In  1766,  he  became  mate  of  a  Jamaica  "slaver"  (as 
vessels  engaged  in  the  importation  of  negroes,  from  Africa,  were  called),  and 
two  years  afterward,  while  on  his  way  to  Scotland,  in  another  vessel,  he  became 
master  by  the  death  of  the  two  chief  officers.  In  that  position  he  was  retained, 
though  only  twenty-one  years  of  age.  On  the  death  of  his  mother,  in  1773,  he 
settled  in  Virginia.1  "When  the  Devolution  broke  out,  he  offered  his  services  to 

1.  He  went  there  to  take  charge  of  some  property  belonging  to  a  deceased  brother.  His  original 
name  was  John  Paul,  but,  for  reasons  not  known,  he  added  the  name  of  Jones,  after  settling  in  Vir- 
ginia. 


KICHAKD   CASWELL. 


Congress,  and  received  the  commission  of  a  lieutenant  in  the  navy,  near  tho 
close  of  1775.  He  soon  afterward  became  commander  of  a  vessel,  with  which 
he  took  sixteen  prizes.  In  1777,  he  was  ordered  to  Paris,  to  arrange  some  naval 
operations  with  the  American  commissioners  there;  and  in  the  Spring  of  1778, 
he  was  spreading  universal  alarm  along  the  coasts  of  Scotland,  by  his  bold  ex- 
ploits. At  Whitehaven,  he  captured  two  forts  with  thirty  cannon;  and  at 
another  time,  almost  succeeded  in  making  the  Earl  of  Selkirk,  at  Kirkcudbright, 
a  prisoner.  After  a  very  successful  cruise  in  the  British  waters,  he  returned  to 
Brest,  with  two  hundred  prisoners  of  war  and  much  booty.  At  the  close  of  tho 
Summer  of  1779,  he  made  another  cruise,  with  a  little  squadron,  his  flag-ship 
being  the  Borihomme  Richard;  and  on  the  evening  of  the  23d  of  September,  he 
had  an  engagement  with  the  Serapis  and  Countess  of  Scarborough,  two  strong 
English  vessels  that  were  convoying  the  Baltic  merchant  fleet.  He  had  already 
captured  thirteen  vessels  during  the  cruise,  and  boldly  attacked  these.  It  was 
one  of  the  most  desperate  sea-fights  that  ever  occurred.  At  one  time  the  Richard 
and  Serapis  were  side  by  side,  lashed  together,  and  thus  poured  broadsides  into 
each  other,  while  with  pike,  cutlass,  and  pistol,  the  combatants  fought  hand  to 
hand  upon  both  vessels.  After  a  conflict  of  two  hours,  the  British  vessel  sur- 
rendered; but  Jones'  flag-ship  was  so  shattered,  that,  sixteen  hours  after  the 
victory,  it  went  beneath  the  deep  waters  of  Bridlington  Bay.  This  victory  gave 
Jones  great  eclat,  both  in  America  and  Europe.  King  Louis  of  France  presented 
him  with  an  elegant  gold-mounted  sword,  with  appropriate  emblems  and  motto 
upon  its  blade ;  and  Congress  then  voted  special  thanks  to  the  victor,  and  had 
a  gold  medal  struck  in  his  honor,  and  presented  to  him,  eight  years  afterward. 
Captain  Jones  returned  to  Philadelphia,  in  1781;  and  when  peace  was  estab- 
lished, he  went  to  Europe  as  agent  for  the  recovery  of  prize  money.  He  re- 
turned to  America  in  1787,  and  the  following  year  he  was  solicited  to  join  the 
Russian  navy,  with  the  commission  of  rear-admiral.  He  served  against  the 
Turks,  in  the  Black  Sea,  for  awhile,  but  disliking  the  position,  he  retired  to 
Paris,  on  a  pension  from  the  Empress  Catharine,  in  1789.  There  he  resided 
most  of  the  time,  until  his  death,  which  occurred  on  the  18th  of  July,  1792,  a 
few  days  before  the  arrival  of  a  commission  for  him,  from  President  Washington, 
to  treat  with  Algiers.  Though  the  minute  circumstances  of  his  death  have  been 
related,  and  the  French  National  Assembly  noticed  it  by  an  eulogistic  resolution 
— though  it  is  said  that  his  body  was  placed  in  a  leaden  coffin  to  be  conveyed 
to  the  United  States,  if  asked  for,  yet  "the  place  of  his  sepulchre  is  not  known 
unto  this  day." 


RICHARD    CASWELL. 

THE  first  victory  of  republican  troops  in  North  Carolina,  was  won  by  those 
under  the  command  of  a  lawyer  in  the  prime  of  life ;  and  the  first  incum- 
bent of  the  chair  of  chief  magistrate  of  that  State,  after  it  became  a  sovereign 
commonwealth  by  the  act  of  the  people,  was  that  same  lawyer,  Richard  Gas- 
well.  He  was  a  native  of  Maryland,  where  he  was  born  on  the  3d  of  August, 
1729.  In  1746,  he  went  to  North  Carolina,  where,  through  influential  letters 
of  introduction,  he  found  employment  in  one  of  the  public  offices.  He  became 
deputy-surveyor  of  the  colony;  and  in  1753,  was  made  clerk  of  the  county  court 
of  Orange.  He  studied  law  with  William  Heritage  (his  second  father-in-law), 
obtained  a  license,  and  practiced  with  great  success.  He  was  chosen  a  member 
of  the  Colonial  Assembly  from  Johnston  county,  in  1754,  and  continued  to  rep- 


JOHN  LOVELL.  97 


resent  that  district  until  17  71.  During  the  last  two  years  of  his  legislative 
duties  in  the  Colonial  Assembly,  he  was  Speaker,  and  at  the  same  time  he  held 
the  office  of  colonel  of  the  militia  of  his  county.  In  that  capacity  he  commanded 
the  right  wing  of  Governor  Tryou's  forces  at  the  battle  of  the  AUamance,  his  re- 
gard for  law  and  order  causing  him  to  condemn  the  rebellious  movements  of 
the  Regulators.1  He  was  one  of  the  delegates  of  North  Carolina,  in  the  Con- 
tinental Congress,  in  1774,  and  was  re-elected  the  following  year ;  but  being 
chosen  treasurer  of  the  southern  district  of  his  State,  he  resigned  his  seat  in  the 
Autumn,  and  returned  home. 

In  February,  1776,  Colonel  Caswell  was  the  commander  of  the  provincial 
forces  who  defeated  the  Scotch  Loyalists  in  a  battle  upon  Moore's  Creek,  in  New 
Hanover  county,  North  Carolina ;  and  in  April  following,  the  Provincial  Con- 
gress gave  him  the  commission  of  a  brigadier,  for  the  district  of  Newbern.  He 
was  chosen  president  of  the  Provincial  Council,  which  framed  a  constitution  for 
the  State,  in  the  Autumn  of  1776,  and  was  elected  the  first  governor  under  that 
instrument.  During  the  stormy  period  of  the  three  succeeding  years,  he  held 
that  office,  performed  his  duty  with  rare  faithfulness  and  ability,  and  refused 
compensation  for  his  services.  He  led  the  troops  of  North  Carolina,  under  Gates, 
in  1780,  and  was  a  participant  in  the  disastrous  defeat  of  the  Americans  at  Cam- 
den.  From  1782  to  1784,  he  was  Speaker  of  the  State  Senate,  and  controller- 
general.  Then  he  was  again  elected  governor  of  the  State.  He  filled  that  office 
until  1786,  when  he  became  ineligible,  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  con- 
stitution. The  following  year,  he  was  chosen  a  delegate  to  the  convention  which 
formed  the  Federal  Constitution  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia ;  and  when  the  General 
Assembly  of  his  State  met,  he  was  chosen  Speaker  of  the  Senate.  But  his 
course  on  earth  was  nearly  finished.  Domestic  bereavements  had  clouded  his 
life  with  melancholy ;  and  while  presiding  in  the  Senate,  on  the  5th  of  Novem- 
ber, 1787,  he  was  prostrated  by  paralysis.  He  lingered  in  almost  insensibility, 
until  the  tenth,  when  he  expired,  in  the  sixtieth  year  of  his  age. 


JOHN    LOVELL. 

"  'THE  Master"  of  many  of  the  leading  men  of  the  "War  for  Independence,  in 
1  New  England,  was  John  Lovell,  a  descendant  of  one  of  the  first  settlers 
in  the  Massachusetts  colony.  He  was  born  in  1708,  and  was  graduated  at 
Harvard  College,  at  the  age  of  twenty  years.  He  succeeded  Jeremiah  Gridley 
as  assistant  in  the  South  Grammar  School  of  Boston,  and  in  1738,  was  placed  at 
its  head,  where  he  exercised  pedagogue  authority  for  almost  forty  years.  He 
wrote  several  political  and  theological  pamphlets;  and  in  1743,  he  delivered  a 
funeral  oration,  on  the  death  of  Peter  Faneuil,  the  founder  of  Faneuil  Hall,  which 
was  published.  Unlike  a  great  proportion  of  his  earlier  pupils,  Master  Lovell 
was  a  Loyalist,  and  left  Boston,  with  other  refugees,  when  the  British  were  driven 
from  that  city  in  March,  1776.  He  died  in  Halifax,  Nova  Scotia,  in  1778,  at 
the  age  of  seventy  years. 

1.  The  people  of  the  interior  of  North  Carolina,  were  chiefly  of  Scotch-Irish  descent,  and  thoroughly 
imbued  with  independence  of  spirit.  They  warmly  sympathized  with  their  brethren  of  the  sea-board  in 
opposing  the  Stamp  Act ;  and  in  1771,  an  association  of  the  principal  inhabitants  of  Orange  and  adjacent 
counties,  was  formed  to  resist  the  growing  rapacity  of  office  holders,  and  regulate  the  political  affairs 
of  their  section.  They  called  themselves  Regulators.  Tryon,  then  governor  of  the  colony,  led  an  armed 
force  against  them,  and  in  May,  1771,  they  had  a  bloody  skirmish  on  the  AUamance  Creek.  The  Regu- 
lators were  overpowered,  and  six  of  the  prisoners  then  captured,  were  hung  at  Hillsborough.  There, 
really,  the  first  Hood  of  the  Revolution  was  shed. 


98 


ISAAC  SHELBY. 


V  -- 


ISAAC    SHELBY. 

IF  being  a  hero  in  two  wars,  with  a  long  interval  of  useful  service  in  civil  life, 
should  command  the  reverence  of  posterity,  surely  Isaac  Shelby,  of  Ken- 
tucky, may  worthily  make  claim  to  such  reverential  regard.  He  was  born  a  few 
miles  from  Hagerstown,  Maryland,  on  the  llth  of  December,  1750,  and  inherited 
from  his  Welsh  ancestors  that  courage  and  perseverance  for  which  he  was  so 
distinguished.  He  became  a  professional  surveyor  ;  and,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
one  years,  he  settled  in  Western  Virginia.  He  was  with  his  father,  Evan  Shelby, 
in  the  battle  at  Point  Pleasant,  in  1774,  and  was  afterward  employed  by  Hen- 
derson and  others,  as  a  surveyor,  in  Kentucky.  In  July,  1776,  he  was  appointed 
to  the  command  of  a  company  of  minute-men,  by  the  Virginia  committee  of 
safety  ;  and  the  following  year,  Governor  Patrick  Henry  appointed  him  commis- 
sary of  supplies.  In  1778,  he  was  attached  to  the  Continental  commissary  de- 
partment; and  in  the  Spring  of  1779,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Virginia 
Legislature,  from  Washington  county.  Governor  Jefferson  gave  him  the  com- 
mission of  major,  in  the  Autumn  of  that  year,  about  which  time  he  was  engaged 
in  defining  the  boundary  line  between  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  which 


JOHN  ASHE.  99 


placed  his  residence  in  the  latter  State.  A  new  county  of  Sullivan  was  formed, 
and  Governor  Caswell  appointed  him  colonel  of  that  district.  He  took  very  little 
part  in  military  affairs,  until  the  Summer  of  1780,  when  Charleston  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  British,  and  the  subjugation  of  the  whole  South  seemed  inevitable. 
Colonel  Shelby  was  then  locating  lands  for  himself,  in  Kentucky.  His  country 
needed  his  services,  arid  they  were  freely  given.  He  hastened  home,  raised  a 
corps  of  three  hundred  mounted  riflemen,  crossed  the  mountains,  and  joined 
Colonel  McDowell,  on  the  Broad  River.  He  was  very  active  in  that  vicinity ; 
and  with  Colonels  Campbell,  Sevier,  and  other  brave  officers  and  soldiers,  he 
fought  the  decisive  and  successful  battle,  with  Major  Ferguson,  on  King's  Moun- 
tain, in  October,  1780.  He  suggested  to  General  Greene  that  expedition  which 
resulted  so  brilliantly  for  Morgan,  and  his  country,  at  the  Cowpens.  In  the  cam- 
paign of  1781,  Shelby  was  under  the  command  of  Marion,  for  awhile;  and  the 
following  year,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  North  Carolina  Legislature.  He 
afterward  made  Kentucky  his  residence,  and  was  one  of  the  framers  of  its  con- 
stitution, in  1792.  He  was  elected  the  first  governor  of  the  new  State,  and  after 
an  interval  of  comparative  repose,  he  was  again  the  incumbent  of  that  import- 
ant office,  in  1812.  Another  war  with  Great  Britain  was  then  impending.  The 
fire  of  1776  still  warmed  his  bosom,  and  he  called  his  countrymen  to  arms,  when 
the  proclamation  of  war  went  forth.  Henry  Clay  presented  him  with  a  sword, 
voted  by  the  legislature  of  North  Carolina  for  his  gallantry  at  King's  Mountain, 
thirty-two  years  before,  and  with  that  weapon  he  marched  at  the  head  of  four 
thousand  Kentucky  volunteers,  toward  the  Canada  frontier,  in  1813,  though  the 
snows  of  threescore  and  three  Summers  were  upon  his  head.  He  fought  gal- 
lantly upon  the  Thames,  in  Canada ;  and  for  his  valor  there,  Congress  honored 
him  with  a  gold  medal.  President  Monroe  appointed  him  Secretary  of  War,  in 
1817,  but  he  declined  the  honor,  for  he  coveted  the  repose  which  old  age  de- 
mands. His  last  public  act  was  the  holding  of  a  treaty  with  the  Chickasaw 
Indians,  in  1818,  with  General  Jackson  for  his  colleague.  His  sands  of  life  were- 
now  nearly  exhausted.  In  February,  1820,  he  was  prostrated  by  paralysis,  yet 
he  lived,  somewhat  disabled,  until  the  18th  of  July,  1826,  when  apoplexy  ter- 
minated his  life.  He  was  then  almost  seventy-six  years  of  age. 


JOHN    A  SI-IE. 

THE  resistance  to  official  oppression  in  some  of  the  interior  counties  of  North 
Carolina,  in  1771,  known  as  the  Regulator  movement,  was  not  viewed,  by 
many  good  men,  as  a  legitimate  part  of  the  general  opposition  to  government 
measures,  then  rampant  throughout  the  colonies ;  and  some  who  were  the  most 
earnest  in  denouncing  the  Stamp  Act,1  zealously  assisted  Governor  Tryon,  in  his 
measures  for  suppressing  these  insurgents.  Of  these,  John  Ashe  was  conspic- 
uous. He  was  born  in  England,  in  1721,  and  at  the  age  of  six  years,  he  accom- 
panied his  father  to  America,  and  grew  to  manhood  near  the  banks  of  the  Cape 
Fear  river,  in  North  Carolina.  He  was  a  representative  in  the  Colonial  Assem- 
bly for  several  years,  and  from  1762  to  1765,  he  was  Speaker  of  that  body.  Ho 

1.  In  order  to  raise  a  revenue  from  the  American  colonies,  to  replenish  the  exhausted  treasury  of 
England  after  the  French  and  Indian  War,  the  Parliament  decreed  that  every  "piece  of  paper,  parch- 
ment, or  vellum,"  on  which  any  legal  instrument  was  written,  should  bear  the  government  stamp,  to 
make  it  valid,  for  which  certain  prices  were  to  be  paid,  according  to  the  character  of  the  instrument. 
The  Americans  justly  regarded  it  as  a  scheme  to  tax  them,  indirectly,  without  their  consent,  and  they 
resisted.  The  country  was  greatly  excited,  and  the  colonies  were  on  the  eve  of  rebellion,  when  the  ob- 
noxious act  was  repealed.  It  became  a  law  in  1765,  and  was  repealed  in  1766. 


100  WILLIAM  JOHNSON. 


warmly  opposed  the  Stamp  Act.  and,  with  Hugh  "Waddell  and  others,  he  exer- 
cised his  authority  as  colonel  of  the  militia  of  his  county,  and  led  an  armed  force 
to  Wilmington,  to  compel  the  stamp  distributer1  to  resign.  He  commanded  a 
part  of  the  troops  in  Governor  Tryon's  expedition  against  the  Regulators,  in  17  71. 
On  one  occasion,  during  that  expedition,  while  he  was  out  reconnoitring,  he  was 
caught  by  some  of  the  insurgents,  tied  to  a  tree,  and  severely  whipped,  Ho 
afterward  became  convinced  of  the  justice  of  the  seemingly  rebellious  movement, 
and  was  one  of  the  most  zealous  of  the  revolutionary  patriots  of  the  South.  In 
the  Colonial  Assembly,  he  advocated  republicanism ;  and  as  a  member  of  the 
Provincial  Congress,  and  of  the'committee  of  safety  at  Wilmington,  he  was  ex- 
ceedingly active.  He  first  suggested  a  Provincial  Congress ;  and  at  the  head 
of  five  hundred  men,  he  destroyed  Fort  Johnson,  in  1775.  For  this  he  was 
denounced  as  an  arch-rebel,  but  the  republicans  were  more  numerous  than  ad- 
herents of  the  crown,  and  he  was  unharmed.  With  eloquent  words  and  ener- 
getic acts,  he  aroused  the  whole  country  around  Wilmington,  early  in  1776;  and 
he  also  raised  and  equipped  a  regiment.  Ho  was  made  a  brigadier,  and  was 
active  in  his  section  until  he  joined  Lincoln  on  the  Savannah,  in  the  Autumn  of 
1778,  with  regiments  from  Halifax,  Wilmington,  Newbern,  and  Edenton.  With 
these  he  pursued  the  British  down  the  right  bank  of  the  Savannah,  from  Augusta, 
early  in  1779,  but  in  a  battle  at  Brier  Creek,  was  defeated,  with  great  loss.  He 
then  returned  home ;  and  when  the  British  took  possession  of  Wilmington,  in 
1781,  General  Ashe  was  made  a  prisoner,  and  his  family  suffered  much.  During 
his  captivity  he  was  attacked  by  the  small-pox.  While  sick,  he  was  released 
on  parole,  but  died  while  accompanying  his  family  to  a  place  of  quiet,  in  October, 
1781,  at  the  age  of  sixty  years. 


WILLIAM   JOHNSON. 

THE  only  "  baronial  hall "  yet  in  existence  in  the  United  States,  is  that  of 
Sir  William  Johnson,  at  Johnstown,  a  few  miles  north  of  the  Mohawk 
river.  Its  first  proprietor,  William  Johnson,  was  a  native  of  Ireland,  where  he 
was  born  about  the  year  1714.  He  was  a  nephew  of  Sir  Peter  Warren,  a  dis- 
tinguished naval  commander  in  the  British  service.  Sir  Peter  married  Miss 
Watts,  of  New  York,  and  purchased  an  extensive  tract  of  land  upon  the  Mo- 
hawk. When  about  twenty  years  of  age,  young  Johnson  came  to  America  to 
look  after  his  uncle's  possessions  in  the  wilderness.  He  learned  the  Indian 
language,  and  soon  acquired  a  great  influence,  especially  over  the  Mohawk  tribes, 
within  whose  domains  he  resided.  He  built  a  large  stone  mansion  on  the  Mo- 
hawk, near  the  present  village  of  Amsterdam,  called  it  Fort  Johnson,  and  re- 
sided there  twenty  years  before  he  built  Johnson  Hall,  above  alluded  to.  He 
was  shrewd,  cunning,  and  licentious.  Many  of  the  half-breed  warriors  of  the 
Mohawks,  who  took  sides  against  the  Republicans  in  the  War  for  Independence, 
were  his  children,  for  he  had  numerous  Indian  concubines,  among  whom  was  a 
sister  of  the  famous  Mohawk  chief,  Joseph  Brant.  He  also  had  a  white  wife, 
the  pretty  daughter  of  a  German  emigrant,  by  whom  he  had  a  son  and  two 
daughters.2 

1.  Men  were  appointed  in  all  the  colonies  to  sell  the  stamps,  or  stamped  paper.    The  office  was  so 
obnoxious  to  the  people,  that  none  were  allowed  to  exercise  it. 

2.  In  those  days,  emigrants  were  often  sold  to  service,  by  their  own  consent,  to  pay  their  passage- 
money  to  America.    The  girl  alluded  to  had  been  purchased  by  a  man  named  Phillips,  in  the  Mohawk 
Valley.    She  attracted  the  attention  of  Johnson  ;  the  sequel  was  told  to  a  neighbor  by  Phillips  himself : 
"  Johnson,  that  tammed  Irishman,  came  todder  day  and  offered  me  five  pounds  for  her,  threatening  to 


DAVID  BRAINERD.  101 


In  1755,  Johnson  was  intrusted  with  the  command  of  the  provincial  troops  of 
New  York,  in  an  expedition  against  the  French  and  Indians  on  Lake  Champlain. 
He  had  a  severe  battle  with  them  at  the  head  of  Lake  George,  in  which  he  was 
early  wounded,  and  the  command  devolved  on  General  Lyman.  The  provincials 
were  victorious,  and  Johnson  received  the  honors  of  knighthood,  and  five 
thousand  pounds  sterling,  because  of  the  victory.  He  was  also  appointed  super- 
intendent of  Indian  affairs,  with  a  handsome  salary,  and  continued  to  hold  his 
military  commission.  In  1759,  he  was  again  in  the  field ;  and  his  superior  officer 
(Pricleaux)  being  killed  in  an  attack  upon  Fort  Niagara,  he  became  commander- 
in-chief,  and  was  successful.  Such  was  now  his  influence  over  the  Indians,  that 
when  Lord  Amherst  was  at  Oswego,  in  1760,  preparing  to  proceed  against  Mon- 
treal, Sir  William  furnished  him  with  a  thousand  Iroquois  warriors.  He  died 
at  Johnson  Hall,  on  the  llth  of  July,  1774,  at  the  age  of  about  sixty  years.  He 
had  commenced  a  powerful  opposition  to  the  republican  movements  in  the 
Mohawk  Valley,  and  the  mantle  of  his  influence  fell  upon  his  son,  Sir  John 
Johnson,  who  succeeded  to  his  title,  office,  and  estates 


DAVID    BRAINEKD. 

TO  leave  the  endearments  of  home  and  the  pleasures  of  civilized  life,  and  spend 
the  strength  of  manhood  among  pagans,  with  the  sole  aim  of  doing  good  to 
the  needy,  is  true  heroism — an  exhibition  of  chivalry,  worthy  of  the  honors  of 
knighthood.  Prominent  on  the  list  of  such  self-sacrificing  champions,  is  the 
name  of  David  Brainerd,  eminent  as  a  missionary  among  the  Indians  of  our  land. 
He  was  born  at  East  Haddam,  Connecticut,  on  the  20th  of  April,  1718.  In 
1739,  he  entered  Yale  College,  as  a  student;  and  in  1743,  he  was  expelled  from 
that  institution,  first,  because  he  had  disobeyed  orders,  in  attending  prohibited 
meetings  of  those  who  were  attached  to  the  preaching  of  Whitefield  and  Tennant, 
and  secondly,  because  he  indiscreetly  questioned  the  piety  of  one  of  the  tutors, 
and  would  not  acknowledge  his  error.  He  then  commenced  theological  studies, 
with  a  view  of  becoming  a  missionary,  for  he  ardently  desired  to  be  a  teacher 
of  the  poor  Indians,  in  the  knowledge  of  the  gospel.  At  the  age  of  twenty- 
five  years  he  began  his  labors  among  the  Stockbridge  Indians,  in  the  vicinity 
of  Kinderhook,  New  York.  He  lived  in  a  wigwam,  slept  on  straw,  and  ate 
boiled  corn,  hasty-pudding,  and  samp.  Though  feeble  in  body,  and  often  ill,  he 
persevered;  and  when,  in  1744,  his  "flock"  agreed  to  go  to  Stockbridge,  he 
went  with  his  glad  tidings  to  the  Delaware  Indians.  He  continued  in  the  vi- 
cinity of  Easton  nearly  a  year,  during  which  time  he  visited  the  tribes  on  the 
Susquehannah  in  the  "Wyoming  Valley  and  vicinity.  Then  he  returned,  and 
took  up  his  abode  among  the  New  Jersey  Indians  at  Crosswicks,  where  he  was 
remarkably  successful.  In  less  than  a  year,  he  baptized  seventy-seven  converts, 
and  the  whole  tribe  became  thoroughly  reformed  in  their  morals.  His  health 
gradually  gave  way,  and  he  was  compelled  to  leave  the  field  of  duty,  where  his 
heart  lingered.  He  went  to  Boston  in  July,  1747,  and  returning  to  Northamp- 
ton, he  took  up  his  abode  with  Jonathan  Edwards.  In  the  family  of  that  great 
and  good  man  his  flower  of  life  faded,  and  when  the  leaves  began  to  fall  in 
Autumn,  he  fell,  like  an  apple  early  ripe,  into  the  lap  of  the  grave."  His  spirit 
went  from  earth  on  the  9th  of  October,  1747,  when  he  was  only  twenty-nine 
years  of  age. 

horsewhip  me  and  steal  her,  if  I  would  not  sell.    I  tot  five  pounds  pether  as  a  flogging,  took  it,  and  he 's 
got  the  gal." 


102 


OLIVER  ELLSWOETH. 


OLIVER    ELLSWORTH. 

"YTEVER  was  the  harmony  between  private  and  public  virtue  more  complete, 
ll  than  that  exhibited  in  the  character  and  career  of  one  of  the  most  beloved 
of  New  England  patriots  and  jurists,  Oliver  Ellsworth.  He  was  born  at  Wind- 
sor, the  point  of  earliest  settlement  in  Connecticut,  on  the  29th  of  April,  1745. 
His  father  was  a  respectable  farmer,  and  with  the  strong  common  sense  of  his 
class,  he  prepared  Oliver  for  the  stern  duties  of  life,  by  habits  of  labor,  applica- 
tion, and  frugality.  His  mental  superiority  was  early  discovered,  and  his  father 
alternated  the  lad's  daily  life,  between  vigorous  physical  labors,  and  studies 
preparatory  to  a  collegiate  course  of  education.  He  entered  Yale  College  at  the 
age  of  seventeen  years,  but  greater  advantages  appearing  at  Princeton,  ho  com- 
pleted his  studies  there,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1766.  His  talents  were  not 
brilliant,  and  precocity  did  not  show  blossoms  of  promise  as  precursors  of  the 
fruit  of  disappointment.  Slowly  but  strongly  his  intellect  unfolded,  while  he 
labored  with  unceasing  energy  upon  a  rough  farm,  where  his  toil  was  sweetened 
by  the  sympathies  of  a  charming  wife,  one  of  the  "Wolcott  family.  His  evenings 
were  devoted  to  the  study  of  the  law,  and  at  the  age  of  about  twenty-five,  he 
commenced  its  practice  in  the  vicinity  of  Hartford.  His  ambition  soared  not  to 
place  and  honor,  and  the  farmer-lawyer,  at  that  time,  gave  but  little  promise 
of  being  a  chief  justice  of  the  United  States.  The  electric  spark  of  vitality  to 
his  latent  greatness  and  loftier  aspirations  was  communicated  by  a  stranger,  in 


BENJAMIN  HARRISON.  103 

court,  whom  Ellsworth  heard  remark,  and  inquire,  after  one  of  his  forensic  efforts, 
"  Who  is  that  young  man?  He  speaks  well."  Young  Ellsworth  pondered  these 
words,  and  bright  visions  of  fame  broke  upon  his  mind. 

Increase  of  legal  business  induced  Ellsworth  to  make  Hartford  his  rc3idence, 
and  there  he  received  the  appointment  of  State's  Attorney.  As  the  quarrel  with 
Great  Britain  progressed,  he  was  always  found  on  the  side  of  the  people.  Ho 
even  went  to  the  field  with  the  militia  of  his  State,  when  the  war  broke  out. 
In  1777,  he  was  chosen  a  delegate  to  the  Continental  Congress,  and  in  1780, 
took  a  seat  in  the  council  of  his  native  State.  He  continued  a  member  of  that 
body  until  1784,  when  he  was  appointed  a  judge  of  the  superior  court  of  Con- 
necticut. Judge  Ellsworth  was  a  warm  friend  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  did 
much  toward  effecting  its  ratification,  in  his  State,  and  in  1789,  was  elected  the 
first  representative  of  Connecticut  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  There  he 
became  greatly  distinguished  for  his  legislative  qualities,  stern  integrity,  and 
faithful  devotion  to  the  public  interest.  For  seven  years  he  served  his  country 
nobly  in  the  national  councils.  In  the  Spring  of  1796,  he  was  appointed  chief 
justice  of  the  United  States.  He  was  now  in  the  full  prime  of  life,  and  his  mind 
in  its  utmost  vigor.  He  bore  the  ermine  with  majesty,  and  cast  it  off  in  unsul- 
lied purity  when,  toward  the  close  of  1799,  President  Adams  appointed  him, 
with  Davie  and  Murray,  an  ambassador  to  the  French  court,  at  the  head  of 
which  was  the  youthful  Bonaparte.  After  negotiating  a  treaty  for  which  they 
were  sent,  Judge  Ellsworth  visited  other  parts  of  the  Continent,  and  England. 
"While  lingering  in  Great  Britain  for  the  benefit  of  the  health  of  himself  and  an 
invalid  son,  he  resigned  the  office  of  chief  justice.  He  returned  home  early  in 
1801,  and  was  immediately  elected  to  the  council  of  his  State.  His  health  was 
now  becoming  impaired  by  a  distressing  internal  disease ;  and  when,  in  May, 
1807,  he  was  appointed  chief  justice  of  Connecticut,  he  declined  the  office,  for 
he  was  conscious  that  his  death  was  near.  Sis  months  afterward,  his  prophecy 
was  fulfilled.  He  died  on  the  26th  of  November,  1807,  at  the  age  of  sixty-two 
years. 


BENJAMIN    HARRISON. 

"  TVTE  are  about  to  take  a  very  dangerous  step,  but  we  confide  in  you,  and  are 
M  ready  to  support  you  in  every  measure  you  shall  think  proper  to  adopt," 
were  the  significant  words  of  the  constituents  of  Benjamin  Harrison,  as  he  was 
about  to  proceed  to  take  his  seat  hi  the  Continental  Congress,  at  Philadelphia, 
in  1774,  as  a  delegate  from  Virginia.  They  were  the  words  of  men  who  knew 
their  servant  well,  and  allowed  no  shadow  of  distrust  to  cloud  their  hopes.  He 
was  a  patriot  of  the  truest  stamp.  The  exact  time  of  his  birth  is  not  certainly 
known.  It  occurred  at  Berkeley,  the  seat  of  his  father,  on  the  James  River,  a 
few  miles  above  the  residence  of  Colonel  Byrd,  at  Westover.  He  was  educated 
at  the  college  of  William  and  Mary,  at  Williamsburg,  but  on  account  of  the  sud- 
den death  of  his  father,1  and  some  difficulty  with  one  of  the  professors,  he  was 
not  graduated,  and  never  took  his  degree.  In  1764,  young  Harrison  was  elected 
a  member  of  the  Virginia  House  of  Burgesses,  where  he  soon  became  an  in- 
fluential leader.  He  was  chosen  Speaker  of  that  body,  and  when  the  Stamp 
Act  excitement  shook  royal  power  in  Virginia,  the  governor  tried  to  win  him  to 
the  support  of  government,  by  offering  him  a  seat  in  his  council.  Harrison  re- 

1.  The  venerable  rain  and  two  of  his  four  daughters  were  killed  by  Lghtr.ing,  in  his  house,  at  Ber- 
keley,' during  a  terrible  thunder-storm. 


104  JEREMY  BELKNAP. 

jected  the  offer,  boldly  avowed  his  republican  principles,  and  from  that  time 
became  identified  with  the  revolutionary  party  in  Virginia.  He  was  one  of  the 
representatives  of  Virginia  in  the  first  Continental  Congress,  when  his  relative, 
Peyton  Randolph,  was  chosen  its  president.  In  the  Autumn  of  1775,  he  was 
one  of  a  committee  of  Congress  who  visited  the  American  army  at  Cambridge, 
to  devise  plans  for  the  future,  with  Washington;  and  the  following  year  he 
warmly  supported,  and  affixed  his  signature  to,  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
He  was  a  member  of  the  Foreign  Committee  until  its  dissolution  in  1777,  and  at 
that  time  he  returned  to  Virginia,  and  took  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Burgesses. 
He  was  chosen  speaker,  and  held  that  station  until  1782,  when  he  was  elected 
governor  of  Virginia.  As  military  lieutenant  of  his  county,  he  was  very  active 
in  endeavors  to  capture  Arnold,  the  traitor,  and  with  Nelson,  kept  the  militia 
disciplined  and  vigilant,  until  the  great  victory  at  Torktown.  Mr.  Harrison 
served  as  governor,  two  terms,  and  then  retired  to  private  life.  He  was  again 
brought  into  the  public  service  by  being  chosen  governor,  in  1791.  On  the  day 
after  the  election,  he  invited  a  party  of  friends  to  dine  with  him.  He  had  re- 
cently recovered  from  a  severe  attack  of  gout  in  the  stomach ;  indulgence  on 
that  occasion  invited  its  return,  and  the  day  following  was  his  last  on  earth. 
He  died  in  April,  1791.  William  Henry  Harrison,  the  ninth  President  of  the 
United  States,  was  his  son. 


JEREMY    BELKNAP. 

AMONG-  the  writers  of  New  England,  Jeremy  Belknap,  D.D.,  holds  a  high 
rank.  He  was  a  descendant  of  one  of  the  early  inhabitants  of  Boston,  and 
was  born  in  that  city  on  the  4th  of  June,  1744.  He  was  prepared  for  college  in 
the  grammar  school  of  the  celebrated  John  Lovell,  and  was  graduated  at  Har- 
vard, in  1762.  While  a  lad,  he  was  remarkable  for  the  beauty  and  chasteness 
of  his  compositions,  and  his  friends  saw  in  him  the  germ  of  an  elegant  writer. 
He  was  equally  fluent  and  correct  in  his  conversation ;  and  the  profession  of  a 
gospel  minister  being  consonant  with  his  seriousness  of  thought,  he  applied  him- 
self to  the  study  of  theology.  In  17  67,  he  was  ordained  pastor  of  the  church  at 
Dover,  New  Hampshire,  where  he  passed  twenty  years  of  his  ministerial  life,  in 
the  enjoyment  of  the  cordial  esteem  of  men  of  every  class.  He  wrote  consider- 
able in  favor  of  the  colonies,  before  the  war,  but  took  very  little  part  in  public 
affairs  during  the  Revolution.  Toward  the  close  of  his  labors  in  Dover,  he  wrote 
a  history  of  New  Hampshire,  in  two  large  volumes,  which  gained  him  great 
reputation  as  an  accurate  chronicler.  In  1787,  Dr.  Belknap  was  called  to  the 
pastoral  charge  of  a  congregational  church  in  Boston,  and  there  he  spent  the 
remainder  of  his  years,  a  faithful  minister  and  an  assiduous  student.  The  fields 
of  literature  had  great  charms  for  him,  and  in  pursuit  of  the  pleasures  to  be  found 
therein,  he  spent  much  time.  The  last  literary  labor  of  his  life  was  an  American 
Biography,  in  which  he  exhibited  much  patient  research  and  careful  analysis. 
He  did  not  live  to  complete  it,  for,  in  June,  1798,  he  was  suddenly  prostrated 
by  paralysis  of  the  whole  system,  and  died  on  the  20th  of  that  month,  at  the 
age  of  fifty-four  years.  He  experienced  the  "  privilege  "  for  which  he  aspired, 
as  expressed  in  the  following  lines,  found  among  his  papers: 

"  When  faith  and  patience,  hope  and  love, 
TTave  made  us  meet  for  heaven  above, 
How  blest  the  privilege  to  rise, 
Siatched,  in  a  moment,  to  the  skies  ! 
Unconscious  to  resign  our  breath, 
Nor  taste  the  bitterness  of  death." 


ROBERT   R.  LIVINGSTON. 


105 


ROBERT    R.    LIVINOSTON. 

VERT  few  of  the  American  settlers  were  descendants  of  aristocratic  families, 
except  the  cavaliers  of  Virginia,  and  as  a  general  rule,  they  were  staunch 
republicans  when  the  great  political  question  of  right  and  power  was  to  be  de- 
cided between  the  colonists  and  Great  Britain.  Robert  Livingston,  the  first  of 
the  name  who  emigrated  to  America,  was  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  Earl  of 
Livingstone,1  of  Scotland.  From  him  descended  the  family  of  that  name  so 
numerous  at  the  period  of  the  Revolution,  and  since,  and  who  were  all  remark- 
able for  their  unflinching  patriotism  during  the  great  struggle.  Robert  R. 
Livingston  was  a  great  grandson  of  the  first  "lord  of  the  manor."2  To  the  care- 
ful research  and  accurate  pen  of  John  W.  Francis,  M.D.,  we  are  indebted  for  a 
record  of  the  chief  events  of  his  life.  He  was  born  in  the  city  of  New  York,  in 
1747,  and  was  educated  at  King's  (now  Columbia)  College,  where  he  was  grad- 
uated in  1764.  He  studied  law  under  the  guidance  of  William  Smith,  chief 
justice  of  New  York,  and  became  an  eminent  practitioner  of  that  profession. 

1.  He  was  hereditary  governor  of  Linlithgow  Castle,  in  -which  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  was  born,  and 
his  daughter  was  one  of  the  four  ladies  who  accompanied  that  unfortunate  Queen  to  France. 

2.  The  Manor  of  Livingston,  in  Columbia  county,  New  York.     It  was  one  of  those  manorial  estates, 
established  under  the  patroon  privileges  of  the  Dutch  rule  in  that  province.     See  note  1,  page  260. 

O 


106  WILLIAM  'ALEXANDER. 

His  zeal  for  popular  liberty  was  thoroughly  awakened  during  the  excitement 
incident  to  the  Stamp  Act.  and  he  was  an  early  participant  in  those  movements 
which  resulted  in  revolution.  The  brave  General  Montgomery,  who  fell  at 
Quebec,  had  married  his  sister,  and  that  event  intensified  his  devotion  to  the 
republican  cause.  In  1776,  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Continental  Con- 
gress, at  the  same  time  holding  the  office  of  delegate  in  the  Provincial  Congress 
of  New  York.  He  was  appointed  one  of  the  committee  to  draft  a  Declaration 
of  Independence,  but,  being  called  to  duties  at  home,  before  the  final  vote  was 
taken,  his  name  does  not  appear  upon  that  instrument. 

Mr.  Livingston  was  made  Secretary  of  Foreign  Affairs  (Secretary  of  State) 
when  the  new  organization  of  government,  under  the  Articles  of  Confederation, 
was  completed ;  and  performed  the  duties  of  that  station  with  rare  ability,  until 
1783,  when  he  was  appointed  Chancellor  of  the  State  of  New  York.  He  was  a 
warm  supporter  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  in  the  New  York  convention  held 
at  Poughkeepsie  in  1788,  to  consider  it;  and  on  the  30th  of  April,  the  following 
year,  he  administered  the  oath  of  office  to  Washington,  the  first  President  of  the 
United  States.  In  1801,  Mr.  Jefferson  appointed  him  resident  minister  at  the 
court  of  Napoleon,  and  he  successfully  negotiated  the  purchase  of  Louisiana, 
from  the  French,  for  fifteen  millions  of  dollars.  By  his  enlightened  patronage 
of  Robert  Fulton,  in  his  experiments  in  steam  navigation,  he  conferred  a  lasting 
benefit  on  mankind,  and  his  name  will  always  be  honorably  associated  with  that 
inventor,  and  the  wonderful  results  of  those  experiments.  Chancellor  Livingston 
died  at  his  seat,  at  Clermont,  in  Columbia  county,  on  the  26th  of  February,  1813, 
in  the  sixty-sixth  years  of  his  age.  "His  person,"  says  Dr.  Francis,  who  knew 
him  intimately,  "  was  tall  and  commanding,  and  of  patrician  dignity.  Gentle 
and  courteous  in  his  manners,  pure  and  upright  in  his  morals,  his  benefactions 
to  the  poor  were  numerous  and  unostentatious.  In  his  life,  he  was  without 
reproach — in  death,  victorious  over  its  terrors." 


WILLIAM    ALEXANDER. 

ONLY  one,  of  all  the  American  officers  of  the  Revolution,  bore  a  title  of  nobility 
by  descent  of  patent,  and  his  was  disputed  and  denied.  That  officer  was 
William  Alexander,  who  claimed  the  title  of  Earl  of  Stirling.  He  was  the  son 
of  James  Alexander,  of  Scotland,  who  took  refuge  in  America,  in  1716,  after  a 
warm  participation  in  the  cause  of  the  son  of  James  the  Second,  "  pretender"  to 
the  rightful  heirship  of  the  throne  of  England.  William  was  born  in  the  city  of 
New  York,  in  1726.  His  mother  was  the  widow  of  David  Provoost,  a  bold 
smuggler  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century,  and  well  known  by  the  name  of 
"  Ready  Money  Provoost."  Young  Alexander  joined  the  army  in  the  French 
and  Indian  war,  and  was  secretary  to  General  Shirley.  He  accompanied  that 
officer  to  England,  in  1755,  and  there  made  the  acquaintance  of  some  of  the 
leading  men  of  the  realm.  By  their  advice,  he  instituted  proceedings  to  obtain 
the  title  of  Earl  of  Stirling,  to  which  his  father  was  heir-presumptive  when  he 
left  Scotland.  Although  he  did  not  obtain  a  legal  recognition  of  the  title,  his 
right  to  it  was  generally  conceded,  and  from  that  time  he  was  addressed  as  Earl 
of  Stirling.  He  returned  to  America  in  1761,  married  the  daughter  of  Philip 
Livingston  (sister  of  Governor  Livingston,  of  New  Jersey),  and  built  a  fine  man- 
sion, on  his  estate,  at  Baskenridge.  He  was  a  member  of  the  New  Jersey 
Provincial  Council  for  a  number  of  years ;  and  when  the  choice  between  repub- 
licanism and  royalty  had  to  be  made,  he  was  found  on  the  side  of  the  people. 


TIMOTHY  DWIGHT.  107 


In  1775,  the  Provincial  Convention  of  New  Jersey  appointed  him  colonel  of  the 
first  regiment  of  militia,  and  in  March,  1776,  Congress  gave  him  the  commission 
of  a  brigadier.  General  Lee  left  him  in  command  at  New  York  in  April,  and  in 
August,  he  fought  valiantly  in  the  battle  near  Brooklyn,  and  was  made  prisoner. 
He  was  exchanged ;  and  in  February  following,  Congress  made  him  a  major- 
general.  He  performed  active  and  varied  services  until  the  Summer  of  1781, 
when  he. was  ordered  to  the  command  of  the  northern  army,  with  his  head- 
quarters at  Albany.  An  invasion  from  Canada  was  then  expected.  Indeed  it 
was  commenced  under  St.  Leger,  but  the  vigorous  preparations  of  Stirling  in- 
timidated him,  and  the  scheme  was  abandoned.  Late  in  the  Autumn,  he  took 
command  in  New  Jersey,  and  had  jurisdiction  and  general  supervision  of  military 
affairs,  in  that  State  and  in  New  York,  to  Fishkill  above  the  Hudson  Highlands. 
Lord  Stirling  was  again  in  command  at  Albany,  in  1782,  where  he  died,  on  the 
15th  of  January,  1783,  in  the  fifty-seventh  year  of  his  age.  It  is  a  singular  fact, 
that  during  the  War  for  Independence,  Lord  Stirling -had  command,  at  different 
times,  of  every  brigade  of  the  American  army,  except  those  of  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia. 


TIMOTHY    DWIGHT. 

THWENTY  days  after  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  adopted  by  the 
JL  Continental  Congress,  a  young  man,  twenty  four  years  of  age,  addressed 
the  students  of  Yale  College  on  the  subject  of  the  future  of  the  States  then  just 
declared  "free  and  independent,"  in  language  truly  prophetic.1  That  young 
prophet  was  Timothy  Dwight,  a  grandson  of  the  celebrated  Jonathan  Edwards, 
and  many  years  the  honored  president  of  that  ancient  institution  of  learning. 
He  was  born  at  Northampton,  Massachusetts,  on  the  14th  of  May,  1752.  He 
was  educated  at  Yale  College,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1769.  From  that 
period,  until  1771,  he  taught  a  grammar  school,  in  New  Haven,  and  at  the  same 
time  he  devoted  eight  hours  each  day  to  severe  study.  At  the  age  of  nineteen 
years  he  was  chosen  a  tutor  in  Yale  College,  and  performed  the  duties  of  his 
station  with  great  satisfaction  for  six  years.  It  was  while  he  was  engaged  in 
that  vocation  that  he  delivered  the  address  above  alluded  to.  He  took  his 
second  degree  in  1772,  and,  on  that  occasion,  he  delivered  a  learned  dissertation 
on  the  history,  eloquence,  and  poetry  of  the  Bible.  At  about  that  time  he  com- 
menced his  sacred  epic,  The  Conquest  of  Canaan,  and  finished  it  at  the  age  of 
twenty-two  years.  Severe  application  and  want  of  bodily  exercise  now  seriously 
affected  his  health,  but  it  was  speedily  restored  by  a  change  of  habits,  and  sick- 
ness was  a  stranger  to  him  during  the  next  forty  years.2 

Mr.  Dwight  married  in  the  Spring  of  1777  ;  and  in  June  following,  he  was 
licensed  to  preach  the  gospel.  In  September,  he  withdrew  from  the  college, 
was  appointed  chaplain  to  General  Parson's  brigade,  and  joined  the  Continental 

1.  After  speaking  of  the  establishment  of  a  republican  government,  having  for  its  basis  (he  virtue  and 
intelligence  of  the  people,  he  referred  to  the  necessary  influence  which  such  a  government  would  have 
on  the  general  advancement  of  mankind.     He  spoke  of  Ihe  yet  undeveloped  resources  of  the  soil  and 
mines,  the  organization  of  new  States,  the  vast  increase  of  population  ;  and  then  referred  to  the  condition 
of  that  portion  of  the  Continent  under  Spanish  rule,  from  which  during  the  last  twenty  years,  we  have 
received  such  vast  accessions  of  territory.     After  speaking  of  the  vices  and  degradation   of  the  people, 
he  says,  "  the  moment  our  interest  demands  it,  these  extensive  regions  will  be  our  own  ;  the  present  race 
of  inhabitants  will  either  be  entirely  exterminated,  or  revive  to  the  native  human  dignity,  by  the  gen- 
erous nnd  beneficent  influence  of  just  laws  and  rational  freedom. " 

2.  He  was  always  afflicted  with  a  painful  disease  of  the  eyes,  caused  by  his  intense  use  of  them  in 
study  too  soon  after  recovering  from  the  small-pox. 


108 


TIMOTHY   DWIGHT. 


^ 


Army,  at  "West  Point,  on  tho  Hudson.  There  he  wrote  several  patriotic  songs, 
of  which  the  one  commencing, 

"  Columbia  !  Columbia !  to  glory  arise, 
The  queen  of  the  world,  and  the  child  of  the  skies," 

was  the  most  celebrated.  That,  too,  like  his  address  the  year  before,  was  truly 
prophetic.  On  receiving  the  news  of  his  father's  death,  he  left  the  army,  settled 
at  the  homestead  in  Northampton,  and  with  filial  regard  cherished  his  aged 
mother,  for  several  years.  He  preached  occasionally  in  the  neighboring  towns, 
and  superintended  a  school  at  Hadley.  In  1781,  he  was  elected  a  member  of 
the  Massachusetts  legislature,  but  he  soon  abandoned  civil  employment  for  that 
of  clerical  duties.  He  was  ordained  pastor  of  a  church  at  Greenfield,  near  Fair- 
field,  Connecticut,  where  he  opened  an  academy,  and  labored  industriously  in 
the  cause  of  religion  and  education,  for  twelve  years.  The  building  in  which  he 
taught  school,  on  "Greenfield  Hill,"  is  yet  [1854]  standing.  In  1785,  his  Con- 
quest of  Canaan  was  first  published,  three  thousand  subscribers  for  it  having 
been  obtained.  In  1794,  another  poem,  called  Greenfield  Hill,  was  published, 
and  increased  his  fame  as  an  epic  poet.  Higher  and  more  arduous  duties  now 
awaited  him.  On  the  death  of  Dr.  Stiles,  in  1795,  he  was  chosen  President  of 
Yale  College,  and  for  ten  years  performed  the  duties  and  received  the  emolu- 
ments of  Professor  of  Theology,  in  that  institution,  by  annual  appointment,  when 


CHEISTOPHER   GADSDEN.  109 

the  office  became  permanent.  In  1800,  he  completed  his  revision  of  Watts' 
Psalms  and  Hymns,  to  which  he  added  thirty-nine  of  his  own;  and  in  1809,  he 
published  almost  two  hundred  of  his  most  important  sermons,  in  five  volumes. 
From  1805  until  1815,  he  spent  his  college  vacations  in  travelling  through  New 
England  and  the  State  of  New  York,  taking  full  notes  of  what  he  saw  and  heard. 
These  formed  the  basis  of  his  published  Travels,  in  four  volumes.  After  suffer- 
ing for  nearly  a  year  from  an  acute  disease,  he  died,  on  the  llth  of  January, 
1817,  at  the  age  of  almost  sixty-five  years.  Dr.  Dwight  was  the  author  of  a 
great  many  published  discourses  and  pamphlets  on  various  subjects,  chiefly  of  a 
theological  and  philosophical  character. 


CHRISTOPHER    GADSDEN. 

or  those  who  adhered  to  Great  Britain  when  the  "War  for  Independ- 
JL  ence  commenced,  were  very  numerous  in  South  Carolina,  and  it  required 
greater  courage  on  the  part  of  the  "Whigs,  or  opposers  of  government,  to  avow 
their  principles,  than  in  communities  where  such  loyalists  were  exceptions.  Bold 
among  the  boldest,  was  Christopher  Gadsden  in  denouncing  British  oppression, 
even  as  early  as  the  period  of  the  Stamp  Act.1  He  was  a  native  of  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  where  he  was  born  in  1724.  He  was  sent  "home,"  as  England 
was  called,  to  be  educated,  and  remained  several  years  with  his  relatives  in  the 
west  of  England.  He  returned  to  Charleston  at  the  age  of  sixteen  years,  and  was 
soon  afterward  apprenticed  to  a  merchant  in  Philadelphia,  where  he  remained 
till  he  was  twenty-one  years  of  age.  Ho  then  went  to  England ;  and  on  the 
death  of  the  purser  of  the  vessel  in  which  he  returned,  he  was  appointed  to  fill 
his  place.  He  retained  that  situation  two  years,  and  then  engaged  in  mercantile 
business  in  Charleston. 

Gadsdcn's  father  owned  a  large  property  in  Charleston,  but  lost  it  all  in  play 
with  Lord  Anson,  a  celebrated  admiral  in  the  British  navy,  who  visited  that 
city  in  1733.  That  portion  of  the  town  still  bears  the  name  of  Ansonborough. 
Christopher  was  successful,  purchased  all  the  property  that  once  belonged  to 
his  father,  and  lived  in  the  "  Anson  house,"  as  it  was  called,  till  his  death. 
Henry  Laurens  was  his  nearest  neighbor  and  dearest  friend,  and  they  always  acted 
shoulder  to  shoulder  as  unflinching  patriots.  Gadsden  was  appointed  a  delegate 
to  the  Congress  which  assembled  at  New  York  in  1765,  in  consequence  of  the 
passage  of  the  Stamp  Act ;  and  from  that  period,  through  all  the  storms  of  the 
Eevolution,  until  the  fall  of  Charleston,  in  1780,  he  was  regarded  as  the  most 
reliable  of  the  patriot  leaders,  both  civil  and  military.  He  was  chosen  a  delegate 
to  the  first  Continental  Congress,  in  1774 ;  and  in  that  body,  urged  an  immediate 
attack  upon  General  Gage  at  Boston,  before  he  should  be  reinforced  by  fresh 
troops  from  Great  Britain.  He  was  considered  rash,  but  the  measure  was  only 
delayed  a  few  months. 

In  1775,  Mr.  Gadsden  was  elected  senior  colonel  of  three  regiments  raised  at 
Charleston,  and  was  subsequently  made  a  brigadier.  He  was  active  at  the  time 
of  the  attack  on  Charleston,  in  1776;  and  two  years  afterward  he  gave  his 
efficient  aid  in  forming  a  republican  constitution  for  his  native  State.  He  re- 
signed his  military  commission  in  1779,  and  was  lieutenant-governor  of  the  State, 

1.  Under  a  wide-spreading  live  oak,  a  little  north  of  the  residence  of  Mr.  Gadsden,  the  patriots  used 
to  assemble  during  the  Summer  and  Autumn  of  1765,  and  even  the  next  Summer  after  the  Stamp  A  ct 
was  repealed,  to  discuss  the  political  question  of  the  day.  From  that  circumstance,  the  green  oak,  IP  e 
the  famous  Boston  elm,  was  called  Libert;/  Tree.  Under  that  tree,  Gadsden  boldly  warned  the  people, 
in  1776,  not  to  rejoice  too  much,  for  the  repeal  was  only  a  show  of  justice. 


110  SAMUEL  SEABURY. 


when  Charleston  was  captured  by  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  in  May,  1780.  A  few 
weeks  after  the  capitulation,  he  was  treacherously  taken  from  his  bed  at  night, 
and,  with  others,  was  conveyed  on  board  prison  ships,  in  violation  of  the  solemn 
stipulations  contained  in  the  articles  of  capitulation.  They  were  taken  to  St. 
Augustine ;  and  because  the  venerable  patriot  would  not  submit  to  indignities 
at  the  hands  of  Governor  Tonyn,  he  was  cast  into  a  loathsome  prison,  where  he 
remained  until  exchanged  in  June,  1781,  eleven  months  afterward.  From  St. 
Augustine  he  sailed  to  Philadelphia,  with  other  prisoners.  On  his  return  to 
Charleston,  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  State  legislature,  where,  notwith- 
standing his  bad  treatment,  he  generously  opposed  the  confiscation  of  the  prop- 
erty of  the  Loyalists.  He  was  elected  governor  of  his  State,  in  1782,  but  declined 
the  honor.  He  remained  in  private  life  until  his  death,  on  the  28th  of  August, 
1805,  at  the  age  of  eighty-one  years. 


SAMUEL    SEABURY. 

THE  first  Protestant  Bishop,  in  the  United  States,  was  the  son  of  a  Congrega- 
tional minister  who  preached  at  Groton,  Connecticut,  and  afterward  became 
an  episcopal  clergyman  at  New  London.  That  son,  Samuel  Seabury,  was  born 
at  New  London,  in  1728;  was  graduated  at  Yale  College,  in  1751,  and  was  or- 
dained a  priest,  in  London,  P]ngland,  in  1753.  He  had  previously  commenced  a 
course  of  medical  study,  in  Scotland,  but  circumstances  caused  him  to  choose 
the  ministry  as  a  profession,  and  he  studied  theology,  in  London.  On  his  return 
to  America,  he  was  settled  in  the  ministry  at  New  Brunswick,  New  Jersey,  for 
a  little  while,  and  then  he  complied  with  a  call  to  Jamaica,  Long  Island,  where 
he  remained  from  1757  until  the  close  of  1766.  From  Jamaica  he  went  to  West 
Chester,  in  "Westchester  county,  New  York,  and  there  he  was  settled  when  the 
war  of  the  Revolution  broke  out.  Like  many  of  his  clerical  brethren,  he  adhered 
to  the  crown ;  and  in  consequence  of  his  signing  a  protest  against  the  measures 
of  the  "Whigs,  he  became  very  obnoxious  to  the  republican  party. 

In  the  Autumn  of  1775,  a  party  of  horsemen,  led  by  Isaac  Sears,  of  New 
York,  came  from  Connecticut,  entered  the  city  at  noon-day,  destroyed  the  print- 
ing-press of  James  Rivington  (the  editor  of  the  Royal  Gazette),  carried  off  his 
types,  to  the  tune  of  Yankee  Doodle,  and  made  bullets  of  them.  On  their  way 
back  to  Connecticut,  they  seized  Mr.  Seabury,  conveyed  him  to  New  Haven, 
kept  him  a  prisoner  there,  for  some  time,  and  then  paroled  him  to  Long  Island. 
He  had  kept  a  school  at  West  Chester,  for  some  time.  That  was  broken  up,  and 
his  church  was  converted  into  a  hospital.  Finding  no  peace  within  the  limits 
of  his  parole,  he  fled  to  the  arms  of  the  British  in  New  York,  after  they  had 
taken  possession  of  that  city  in  the  Autumn  of  1776.  He  served  as  a  chaplain 
to  Colonel  Fanning's  corps  of  Loyalists,  toward  the  close  of  the  Revolution,  and 
when  peace  came,  he  returned  to  his  native  town.  In  1784,  at  the  request  of 
his  clerical  and  lay  brethren  in  the  East,  Mr.  Seabury  went  to  London,  to  seek 
episcopal  consecration.  Some  difficulties  prevented  the  accomplishment  of  his 
wishes,  and  he  went  to  Scotland,  where,  on  the  4th  of  November,  of  that  year, 
he  was  consecrated  a  Bishop,  by  three  non-juring  prelates  of  the  Scottish  Church.1 
He  presided  over  the  diocese  of  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island,  with  great  dig- 

1.  Those  who  regarded  the  deposition  of  James  the  Second,  in  1688,  as  illegal,  and  refused  to  swear 
allegiance  to  the  new  sovereigns,  William  and  Mary,  his  successors.  Among  these  were  several  Scotch 
Bishops,  who  were  deprived  of  their  sees,  in  1690.  The  Scotch  Episcopal  Church  has  always  differed 
from  that  of  England,  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  and  its  ministers  have  been  called  non-jurors,  even  until 
now. 


THOMAS  NELSON,  JR.  Ill 

nity  and  energy,  for  about  twelve  years,  when  he  was  called  to  give  an  account 
of  his  stewardship  to  his  heavenly  Master.  He  was  buried  at  New  London, 
where  he  expired,  and  over  his  grave  is  a  plain,  elevated  slab,  upon  which  it  is 
recorded  that  he  died  on  the  25th  of  February,  1798,  in  the  sixty-eighth  year 
of  his  age.  The  piety  and  benevolence  of  Bishop  Seabury  endeared  him  to  all, 
of  whatever  name  or  creed,  for  he  was  a  true  Christian. 


THOMAS    NELSON,    JR. 

C  ELF-SACRIFICING  patriotism  was  frequently  exhibited  during  the  revolu- 
U  tionary  struggle,  and  oftentimes  private  property  was  cheerfully  given  for 
the  public  good.  Everywhere,  personal  ease  and  family  endearments  were 
abandoned  for  the  hardships  of  public  life.  Thomas  Nelson,  jr.,  of  Yorktown, 
Virginia,  was  of  that  class  of  patriots.  He  was  born  at  Yorktown,  on  the  26th 
of  December,  1738.  According  to  the  common  practice  among  the  wealthy,  in 
Virginia,  at  that  time,  he  was  sent  to  England  to  be  educated,  where  he  remained 
until  1761,  when  he  returned  home.  He  watched  the  progress  of  difficulties 
between  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies  with  lively  interest,  and  his  sympathies 
were  always  with  the  latter.  He  first  appeared  in  public  life,  in  1774,  when  ho 
was  elected  a  member  of  the  House  of  Burgesses,  of  Virginia,  and  he  was  one 
of  eighty-nine  members  of  that  assembly  who,  when  dissolved  by  the  royal 
governor  (Dunmore),  met  at  the  Raleigh  tavern,  organized,  and  appointed  dele- 
gates to  the  first  Continental  Congress.  He  was  a  member  of  a  provincial  con- 
vention held  in  the  Spring  of  1775,  in  which  Patrick  Henry  uttered  those  sublime 
words,  "  Give  me  liberty  or  give  me  death!"  and  was  one  of  the  boldest  patriots 
therein.  He  there  first  proposed  the  organization  of  the  militia  of  the  colony, 
for  the  defence  of  its  liberties,  and  he  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  a  regi- 
ment after  such  organization  was  effected.  Ho  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the 
Continental  Congress,  in  1775,  and  the  following  year  he  signed  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  In  1777,  severe  and  protracted  illness  compelled  him  to  resign 
his  seat  and  return  home.  By  activity  in  military  life,  for  awhile,  Mr.  Nelson's 
health  was  improved,  and  ho  was  again  elected  a  delegate  to  Congress,  in  1779. 
But  ill  health  compelled  him  to  resign  in  April  following.  When  British  dep- 
redators by  land  and  sea  menaced  that  portion  of  the  country,  General  Nelson, 
at  the  head  of  the  militia  of  Lower  Virginia,  was  active  in  its  defence.  In  1781, 
he  succeeded  Jefferson,  as  governor  of  the  State ;  and  in  both  civil  and  military 
capacities,  he  was  exceedingly  active  and  efficient.  He  even  pledged  his  private 
fortune  as  security  for  the  State,  in  order  to  raise  funds  to  keep  the  militia  in  the 
field ;  and  the  combined  French  and  American  armies  found  him  a  powerful 
auxiliary  in  the  siege  of  Yorktown,  in  the  Autumn  of  1781.  During  that  siege, 
his  own  fine  mansion,  situated  within  the  enemy's  lines,  was  occupied  by  British 
officers.  He  observed  that  in  the  storm  of  balls  which  the  besiegers  were  pour- 
ing upon  the  town  and  the  British  works,  his  own  house  was  spared.  He  begged 
the  cannoniers  not  to  regard  his  property  with  favor,  and  actually  directed  a 
piece  himself,  so  that  the  balls  would  fall  upon  his  mansion.  It  had  the  effect 
to  drive  the  officers  from  that  strong  retreat,  and  no  doubt  hastened  the  sur- 
render of  Cornwallis.  A  month  after  the  surrender,  General  Nelson  heeded  tho 
warnings  of  declining  health,  and  retired  to  private  life.  The  remainder  of  his 
days  were  spent  in  quiet,  alternately  at  his  mansion  in  Yorktown,  and  upon  his 
estate  at  Offley.  He  died  at  tho  former  place  on  tho  4th  of  January,  1789,  in 
the  fifty-third  year  of  his  age. 


112 


MASON  L.  WEEMS. 


MASON    L.    WEEMS. 

IT  is  a  singular  fact  that  Dr.  "Weems,  the  earliest  biographer  of  "Washington 
and  Marion,  a  man  extensively  known  in  the  world  of  letters,  and  who  oc- 
cupied a  large  place  in  the  public  attention,  while  he  lived,  should  be  almost 
without  a  record  in  his  country's  annals.  I  have  never  met  with  a  notice  of  the 
time  and  place  of  his  birth.  Ho  received  a  good  plain  education,  studied  the 
science  of  medicine,  as  a  life  avocation,  but  became  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel,  in 
communion  with  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  in  Virginia.  He  officiated, 
for  awhile,  in  Pohick  church,  a  few  miles  from  Mount  Vernon,  of  which  Wash- 
ington was  vestryman  previous  to  the  Revolution,  and  who  was  also  one  of 
Weems'  parishioners  afterward.  Mr.  Weems  was  a  man  of  very  considerable 
attainments  as  a  scholar,  physician,  and  divine ;  and  his  philanthropy  and  be- 
nevolence were  unbounded.  He  used  wit  and  humor  freely ;  and  his  eccentric- 
ities and  sometimes  singular  conduct,  lessened  the  esteem  of  people  for  his 
character  as  a  clergyman.  He  wrote  lives  of  Washington,  Penn,  Franklin,  and 
Marion,  when  an  increasing  family,  and  the  operations  of  benevolence,  made 
heavy  drafts  upon  his  income.  He  also  became  an  agent  for  the  sale  of  a 
quarto  Bible,  published  by  the  eminent  Mathew  Carey,  of  Philadelphia,  at  the 
commencement  of  the  present  century,  in  which  business  he  was  wonderfully  suc- 
cessful. He  always  preached,  when  invited,  during  his  travels,  and  harangued 
people  at  public  gatherings  at  courts  and  fairs,  where  he  offered  his  Bibles,  and 
other  good  books,  for  sale.  His  fund  of  anecdote  was  inexhaustible  j  and  after 


PHINEAR  LYMAN.  113 


giving  a  promiscuous  audience  the  highest  entertainment  of  fun,  he  found  them 
in  good  mood  to  purchase  his  books.  In  his  vocation,  he  accomplished  a  vast 
amount  of  good ;  and  a  large  family  and  numerous  friends  lamented  his  death 
with  the  most  earnest  grief.  He  died  at  Beaufort,  South  Carolina,  on  the  23d 
of  May,  1825,  at  an  advanced  age. 


PHINEAS    LYMAN. 

A  SSURANCE,  supported  by  titled  influence,  often  wears  an  epaulette  and  a 
J\.  star,  while  true  merit  is  rewarded  with  faint  praise  and  an  honorable  scar. 
Such  a  lesson  of  life  did  experience  teach  Phineas  Lyman,  a  brave  officer  of 
provincial  troops,  during  the  French  and  Indian  war.  He  was  born  in  Durham, 
Connecticut,  in  the  year  1716.  He  was  one  of  the  Berkeleyan  scholars  in  Yale,1 
and  received  his  first  degree  in  1738.  The  following  year  he  was  appointed  a 
tutor  in  that  institution,  in  which  avocation  he  was  engaged  for  three  years,  at 
the  same  time  he  was  studying  the  theory  of  law.  He  commenced  its  practice 
at  Suffield,  in  1743,  and  he  soon  arose  to  the  front  rank  at  the  bar  of  Hampshire 
county.  He  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Colonial  Assembly,  in  1750,  and  in 
1753,  was  chosen  to  a  seat  in  the  council.  At  the  age  of  thirty-nine  years,  he 
was  appointed  major-general  of  the  Connecticut  forces,  and  took  the  field  in  the 
Spring  of  1755.  He  concentrated  between  five  and  six  thousand  troops  on  the 
upper  waters  of  the  Hudson,  built  Fort  Ed  ward,  and  there  awaited  the  arrival  of 
his  commander-in-chief,  General  William  Johnson,  who  was  to  lead  the  provin- 
cials against  the  French  on  Lake  Champlain.  The  fortress  was  first  called  Fort 
Lyman,  in  honor  of  the  Connecticut  general,  but  its  name  was  changed  in  defer- 
ence to  a  scion  of  royalty.  In  the  severe  battle  with  the  French  and  Indians, 
near  the  head  of  Lake  George,  in  September  of  that  year.  General  Lyman  bore 
the  most  conspicuous  part,  and  yet  Johnson,  jealous  of  his  merits,  withheld 
praise.  Through  the  agency  of  titled  friends  at  court,  Johnson  received  the 
patent  of  a  baronet,  and  twenty  thousand  dollars  to  support  its  dignity,  as  a 
reward  for  a  victory  won  chiefly  through  the  skill  and  bravery  of  General  Ly- 
man. The  patriotic  hero  did  not  allow  personal  considerations  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  public  duty,  and  he  served  with  distinction  during  the  whole  war.  He 
was  the  commander  of  the  expedition  which  captured  Havana,  in  1762;  and 
after  the  peace  in  1763,  he  went  to  England,  as  agent  of  a  company  called  The 
Military  Adventurers — soldiers  of  the  war — who  asked  for  an  appropriation  of 
land  for  a  colony  in  the  Mississippi  and  Yazoo  country.  The  same  company  had 
purchased  an  extensive  tract  of  land  on  the  Susquehannah,  and  General  Lyman 
was  intrusted  with  the  management  of  matters  connected  with  that  purchase. 
Deluded  month  after  month  by  idle  promises  from  the  changing  ministry,  in 
England,  he  at  length  came  back,  after  wasting  eleven  years  abroad,  and  almost 
losing  his  mind.  He  returned  in  1774,  and  at  about  that  time,  a  tract  of  land 
having  been  granted,  in  the  Mississippi  and  Yazoo  country,  he  went  thither, 
with  his  eldest  son.  Both  died  in  "West  Florida,"  in  1775,  and  the  following 
year,  his  wife  and  all  her  family,  except  her  second  son,  went  thither.  She 
soon  died ;  and  a  few  years  afterward,  difficulties  with  the  Spaniards  caused  the 
whole  company  of  settlers,  near  Natchez,  to  fly  for  their  safety  across  the  country, 
a  thousand  miles,  to  Savannah.  The  history  of  General  Lyman's  family  is  a 
melancholy  one.  He  died  at  the  age  of  fifty-nine  years,  a  victim  of  ingratitude 
and  injustice. 

1.  From  Bishop  Berkeley,  who  was  a  patron  of  Yale  College.    He  endowed  a  professorship  known  as 
the  Berkeleyan. 


114  JOHN  MANLEY. 


JOHN    MANLEY. 

THE  naval  operations  of  the  United  States  during  the  Revolution  were  far 
more  extensive  and  important  than  is  generally  supposed,  especially  in  the 
privateer  department.  It  is  asserted,  by  good  authority,  that  the  number  of 
vessels  captured  by  American  cruisers,  during  the  war,  was  eight  hundred  and 
three ;  and  that  the  value  of  merchandise  obtained,  amounted  to  over  eleven 
millions  of  dollars.  Among  the  earlier  and  most  intrepid  of  the  naval  com- 
manders of  that  period,  was  John  Manley,  who  received  his  commission  from 
"Washington,  at  Cambridge,  on  the  24th  of  October,  1775,1  and  was  put  in  com- 
mand of  the  schooner  LEE,  with  instructions  to  cruise  in  Massachusetts  Bay. 
He  made  a  great  many  captures,  and  his  services  became  the  theme  of  eulogium 
throughout  the  whole  country.  Among  his  prizes  was  an  ordnance  brig,  which 
contained  heavy  guns,  mortars,  and  intrenching  tools,  of  great  value  to  the  army 
then  besieging  the  British,  in  Boston.  When  Congress  organized  a  navy,  the 
services  of  Captain  Manley  were  appreciated,  and  he  was'raised  to  the  command 
of  the  Hancock,  thirty-two  guns.  He  cruised  with  success,  but  on  the  desertion 
of  a  colleague,  while  engaged  with  the  Rainbow  (afterward  the  flag-ship  of 
Admiral  Collier,  in  the  Autumn  of  1777,  when  on  our  coast  with  a  small  fleet). 
he  was  made  a  prisoner,  on  the  8th  of  July,  1777.  Manley  suffered  a  long  and 
rigorous  confinement  in  the  Rainbow,  and  at  Halifax,  and  his  services  were  lost 
to  the  country  for  almost  the  entire  remainder  of  the  war.  He  was  released  in 
1782,  and  the  frigate,  Hague,  was  placed  under  his  command.  While  cruising 
in  the  West  Indies,  he  was  chased  by  a  British  seventy-four,  and  driven  on  a 
sand  bank.  Three  other  ships  of  the  line  attacked  him,  but  after  sustaining  their 
heavy  fire  for  four  days,  he  got  his  vessel  off,  hoisted  the  continental  flag,  fired 
thirteen  guns  as  a  parting  salute,  and  escaped.  On  his  return  to  Boston,  he  was 
tried  on  some  charges  made  against  him  by  one  of  his  officers,  and  his  reputation 
was  under  a  partial  cloud,  for  a  time.  He  died  in  Boston  on  the  12th  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1793,  at  the  age  of  fifty-nine  years,  and  was  buried  with  military  honors. 


OIL  BERT    CHARLES    STUART. 

IN  the  beautiful  region  of  Rhode  Island,  at  a  place  called  Narraganset,  the 
handsome  wife  of  a  Scotch  snuff-maker  gave  birth  to  a  son,  who  became  the 
most  distinguished  portrait-painter  in  America.  His  father's  name  was  Stuart, 
and  his  loyalty  to  the  young  claimant  of  the  English  throne,2  made  him  add 
Charles  to  the  name  of  Gilbert,  given  to  his  boy.  Gilbert  Charles  Stuart  was 
born  in  1754,  and  at  a  very  early  age  manifested  great  energy  of  character  and 
a  decided  talent  for  art.  At  the  age  of  thirteen  years  he  practised  drawing 
likenesses  with  black-lead  pencil,  and  at  the  age  of  eighteen  he  commenced  a 
course  of  instruction,  in  painting,  under  an  amateur  artist,  named  Alexander. 
He  was  pleased  with  the  lad,  took  him  with  him  on  a  tour  in  the  Southern  States, 

1.  Washington  caused  six  vessels  to  be  fitted  out  for  the  purpose  of  cruising  on  the  New  England 
coast.    These  were  very  efficient.     They  made  many  prizes,  from  which  the  American  army,  early  in 
1776,  was  quite  well  supplied  with  cannon,  mortars,  balls,  ammunition,  and  stores.    The  siege  of  Boston 
and  expulsion  of  the  British  therefrom,  could  not  have  been  accomplished  without  those  supplies  from 
captured  British  vessels.    Toward  the  close  of  1775,  the  Continental  Congress  adopted  measures  for 
organizing  and  employing  a  navy. 

2.  Charles  Edward  Stuart,  a  grandson  of  James  the  Second,  who  was  driven  from  the  throne  in  1688. 
His  son  made  an  effort  to  gain  the  throne  of  his  father,  in  1716.    The  efforts  of  his  grandson  were  put 
forth  in  1745,  but  after  the  great  battle  at  Culloden,  he  became  a  fugitive. 


GILBERT   CHARLES   STUART. 


115 


and  finally  invited  him  to  go  to  Scotland  with  him.  Mr.  Alexander  died  soon 
after  his  arrival  at  Edinburgh,  and  left  his  pupil  in  the  care  of  Sir  George  Cham- 
bers. He,  too,  died,  and  young  Stuart  returned  to  Newport,  as  a  competent 
portrait-painter.  The  late  Dr.  Benjamin  Waterhouse  was  Stuart's  intimate  friend, 
through  life;  and  in  the  "Winter  of  l773-'4,  they  practiced  the  drawing  of  the 
human  figure  from  life,  by  procuring  a  muscular  blacksmith  for  a  model.  This 
was  the  first  "Life  School  of  Design,"  in  America,  and  Stuart  and  his  friend 
Waterhouse  were  the  only  students. 

The  troubles  of  the  Revolution  affected  Stuart's  business,  and  in  the  Autumn 
of  1775,  ho  went  to  England.  Being  a  skilful  musician,  as  well  as  painter, 
Stuart  gained  a  subsistence  by  practicing  both  arts.1  His  friend  "Waterhouso 
was  then  in  London,  perfecting  his"  medical  studies,  and  he  procured  Stuart 
some  sitters,  but  his  eccentric  habits  were  a  continual  bar  to  permanent  pros- 
perity. After  two  years'  residence  there,  he  became  acquainted  with  West,  and 
found  in  him  a  friend  and  benefactor.  In  the  studio  of  that  great  artist  he  be- 
came an  industrious  pupil,  and  there  he  first  became  acquainted  with  Trumbull. 
In  1781,  he  set  up  an  easel  for  himself,  had  continual  and  highly-remunerative 
employment,  and  might  have  become  the  successor  of  Reynolds,  as  the  first 
portrait-painter  in  Great  Biitain,  had  not  intemperate  habits,  which  were  increasing 

1.  While  in  extreme  poverty,  in  London,  Stuart  was  attracted  by  the  sound  of  an  or  pan  in  an  open 
church.  He  went  in,  ascertained  that  several  persons  were  exhibiting  their  skill  as  candidates  for  or- 
panist,  and  boldly  asked  permission  to  enter  the  lists.  It  was  granted,  and  the  young  stranger  was 
choseu  at  a  salary  quite  sufficient  to  meet  his  wants. 


116  WILLIAM   TENNENT. 

in  proportion  to  his  prosperity,  thwarted  the  aspirations  of  his  genius.  He  went 
to  Dublin,  where  he  was  courted  for  his  wit  and  conviviality,  and  finally  re- 
turned to  America,  in  1793.  His  fame  had  preceded  him,  and  his  studio  in  New 
York  was  thronged  with  sitters  and  admirers.  Filled  with  an  ardent  desire  to 
paint  a  portrait  of  "Washington,  he  visited  Philadelphia,  and  there  he  produced 
that  great  picture  of  the  Patriot,  which  is  regarded  as  the  perfect  model  for  all 
correct  likenesses  of  the  revered  Father  of  his  Country.  Stuart  was  so  pleased 
with  Pennsylvania,  while  residing  in  Philadelphia  and  at  Germantown,  that  he 
contemplated  purchasing  a  farm  at  Pottsgrove,  and  making  that  his  permanent 
residence.  His  irregular  habits,  as  usual,  interfered  with  his  plans,  and  we  find 
him  in  "Washington  City,  after  the  removal  of  the  seat  of  government  thither. 
In  1805,  he  settled  in  Boston,  where  ho  continued  in  the  practice  of  his  pro- 
fession, until  his  death,  which  occurred  in  July,  1828,  at  the  age  of  seventy -four 
years.  The  original  portrait  of  "Washington,  from  his  pencil,  is  the  property  of 
the  Boston  Athenasum.  His  last  work  is  a  head  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  in- 
tended for  a  full-length  portrait  of  that  statesman. 


WILLIAM     TENNENT. 

MEN  sometimes  become  more  distinguished  by  their  connection  with  remark- 
able circumstances,  than  for  any  achievements  of  their  own,  and  their  real 
fine  gold  of  character  is  lost  in  the  glitter  of  extraneous  events.  At  this  day, 
that  powerful  preacher  and  indefatigable  servant  of  Christ,  William  Tennent,  is 
better  known  to  the  world  "as  a  man  who  lay  in  a  trance,"  than  as  a  laborer 
for  the  good  of  his  fellow-men.  He  was  born  in  Ireland,  on  the  3d  of  June, 
1705,  and  came  to  America  when  in  the  fourteenth  year  of  his  age.  Under  the 
care  of  his  brother,  Gilbert,  he  studied  theology  so  ardently,  at  New  Brunswick, 
in  New  Jersey,  that  his  health  gave  way,  his  body  became  emaciated,  and  one 
morning,  while  conversing  with  his  brother,  in  Latin,  on  the  state  of  his  soul, 
he  fainted,  and  seemed  to  expire.  He  was  prepared  for  burial,  and  the  funeral 
procession  was  about  to  move,  when  his  physician,  who  had  been  absent,  re- 
turned, and  thought  he  discovered  indications  of  lingering  life.  But  his  body 
was  cold  and  stiff,  and  his  brother  insisted  upon  his  burial.  The  funeral,  how- 
ever, was  postponed  for  awhile,  and  just  as  they  were  about  to  start  again  for 
the  grave,  Mr.  Tennent  opened  his  eyes,  gave  a  groan,  and  again  appeared  life- 
less. He  revived,  slowly  recovered,  but  for  a  long  time  he  was  totally  ignorant 
of  every  past  transaction  of  his  life.  Suddenly  his  faculties  began  to  resume 
their  functions,  and  in  1733,  he  was  ordained  a  minister  of  the  church  at  Free- 
hold, New  Jersey.  That  church,  and  the  house  in  which  he  lived,  are  yet 
[1854]  standing.  He  never  forgot  the  scenes  of  that  cataleptic  state  in  which 
he  lay  when  his  friends  thought  him  dead.  He  seemed  to  have  been  wafted  to 
a  region  of  ineffable  glory,  where  he  heard  things  unutterable.  He  was  accom- 
panied by  a  heavenly  conductor,  and  on  asking  permission  to  join  the  happy 
throng  of  beings  before  him,  the  guide  tapped  him  upon  the  shoulder,  and  said, 
"You  must  return  to  earth."  That  was  the  moment  when  he  opened  his  eyes, 
and  saw  his  brother  disputing  with  the  doctor.  Although  he  had  been  insen' 
sible  for  three  days,  the  time  did  not  seem  to  him  more  than  twenty  minutes. 
After  a  life  of  great  usefulness  as  pastor  of  the  flock  at  Freehold,  for  forty-three 
years,  the  storm  of  the  Revolution  disturbed  him,  an*  with  his  family,  he  went 
to  reside  with  his  son,  in  South  Carolina.  On  his  journey  from  Charleston  to 
the  interior,  when  about  fifty  miles  from  the  sea-board,  he  sickened  and  died. 
Elias  Boudinot  was  his  executor,  but  he  could  never  discover  any  trace  of  Ten- 
nent's  papers.  His  death  occurred  on  the  8th  of  March,  1777. 


JOEL   BARLOW.  117 


JOEL    BARLOW. 

0"  F  Barlow,  the  youngest  of  the  triad  of  American  poets  during  the  struggle 
for  independence,1  it  might  have  frequently  been  said, 

"  The  Minstrel  Boy  to  the  war  has  gone, 
In  the  ranks  of  death  you  '11  find  him," 

for  during  his  vacations  at  Yale  College,  he  would  shoulder  his  musket,  offer 
himself  as  a  volunteer,  at  the  nearest  camp,  and  fight  bravely  when  opportunity 
occurred.  Joel  Barlow  was  the  youngest  of  the  ten  children  of  a  respectable 
farmer,  and  was  born  at  Reading,  in  Connecticut,  in  the  year  1755.  He  was 
graduated  at  Yale,  in  1778,  when  he  bore  a  slight  scar,  received  in  the  battle 
at  White  Plains  two  years  before.  Four  of  his  brothers  were  in  the  Continental 
army,  and  his  whole  being  was  thoroughly  imbued  with  republican  principles. 
He  married  a  sister  of  Abraham  Baldwin,  a  distinguished  statesman  of  Connec- 
ticut, and  in  1783,  he  settled  at  Westford,  arid  commenced  the  publication  of  a 
paper,  called  The  Mercury.  Although,  at  the  close  of  his  collegiate  course,  he 
had  studied  theology  six  weeks,  and  was  licensed  to  preach,  he  preferred  the 
profession  of  the  law;  and  in  1785,  he  was  regularly  admitted  to  the  bar,  as  a 
practitioner.  His  poetic  talents  were  now  widely  known  and  appreciated ;  and 
that  same  year,  at  the  request  of  several  congregational  ministers,  he  prepared 
and  published  a  revised  edition  of  Watts'  poetic  version  of  the  Psalms,2  and 
added  to  them  a  collection  of  hymns,  several  of  them  from  his  own  pen.  In  1787, 
he  published  his  most  ambitious  poem  hitherto  attempted,  entitled,  "  Vision  of 
Columbus"  which  was  dedicated  to  Louis  the  Sixteenth  of  France,  and  was  re- 
published  in  London  and  Paris,  with  applause  from  the  critics.  With  Trumbull, 
Humphreys,  D  wight,  and  others,  he  published  a  satirical  poem,  called  The  An- 
archiad.  Others  soon  followed ;  when,  becoming  enamored  with  the  principles 
of  the  French  Revolution,  he  went  to  Paris,  was  honored  by  the  gift  of  citizen- 
ship, made  France  his  home  for  many  years,  and  by  successful  commercial  pur- 
suits, he  amassed  a  large  fortune.  During  the  worst  of  the  Revolution  (whose 
horrid  scenes  disgusted  him),  he  travelled  over  portions  of  the  Continent,  and  in 
Piedmont  he  wrote  his  celebrated  poem,  called  Hasty  Pudding.  On  his  return 
to  Paris,  in  1795,  Washington  appointed  him  consul  at  Algiers,  with  power  to 
negotiate  a  treaty  with  that  government,  and  those  of  Tunis  and  Tripoli.  After 
an  absence  of  seventeen  years,  ho  returned  to  America,  with  his  fortune,  and 
built  an  elegant  mansion  on  the  east  branch  of  the  Potomac,  near  Washington  city, 
which  he  afterward  called  "  Kalorama."  He  enlarged  his  original  "  Vision  of 
Columbus"  and  i  n!808,  it  was  published  under  the  title  of  The  Columbiad,  in  a 
splendid  quarto  volume,  richly  illustrated,  and  inscribed  to  his  friend,  Robert 
Fulton.  In  1 81 1,  he  commenced  the  preparation  of  a  History  of  the  United  States, 
when  President  Madison  appointed  him  minister  plenipotentiary  to  the  French 
government.  The  following  year,  the  Duke  of  Bassano  invited  him  to  a  con- 
ference with  Napoleon,  at  Wilna,  in  Poland.  The  call  was  urgent,  and  he 
travelled  thither,  night  and  day,  without  rest.  The  fatigue  and  exposure  brought 
on  a  disease  of  the  lungs,  which  terminated  his  life  at  Zarnowica,  near  Cracow, 
on  the  2d  of  December,  1812,  when  in  the  fifty-fourth  year  of  his  age. 

1.  John  Trumbull,  David  Humphreys,  and  Joel  Barlow. 

2.  On  one  occasion  Mr.  Barlow  met  Oliver  Arnold,  a  cousin  of  the  traitor,  in  a  book -store  in  New 
Haven,  and  asked  him  for  a  specimen  of  his  talent  for  making  extempore  rhymes.    Oliver  at  once  said, 
in  allusion  to  Barlow's  version  of  the  Psalms  : 

"  You  've  proved  yourself  a  sinful  cre'tur  ; 
You  've  murdered  Watts  and  spoiled  the  meter  ; 
You  've  tried  the  word  of  God  to  alter, 
And  for  your  pains  deserve  a  halter." 


118  SAMUEL   BARD. 


SAMUEL    BARD. 

THE  medical  profession  in  the  United  States  has  included  many  of  our  noblest 
JL  citizens,  distinguished  alike  for  their  patriotism,  learning,  and  benevolence. 
Samuel  Bard,  who  adorned  the  profession  by  the  exercise  of  all  these  qualities, 
was  the  son  of  an  eminent  physician,  in  Philadelphia,  where  he  was  born  on 
the  1st  of  April,  1742.  His  early  moral  and  intellectual  training  was  thorough, 
and  the  associations  of  his  childhood  and  youth  were  favorable  to  the  develop- 
ment of  his  genius.  While  residing  a  short  time  in  the  family  of  Doctor  Cad- 
wallader  Golden,  he  acquired  a  taste  for  botany,  under  the  teachings  of  an  ac- 
complished daughter  of  that  gentleman.  A  genius  for  drawing  and  painting 
enabled  him  to  make  beautiful  copies  of  plants,  some  of  which  are  yet  in  his 
family.  He  was  graduated  at  Columbia  College,  in  1761,  and  the  same  year  he 
went  to  Europe,  to  obtain  a  thorough  medical  education.  He  was  absent  in 
France,  England,  and  Scotland,  five  years ;  and  such  was  his  skill  in  botany, 
that  he  obtained  the  annual  medal  given  by  Professor  Hope,  at  Edinburgh,  for 
the  best  collection  of  plants,  in  1765.  He  there  received  his  degree,  returned 
home,  entered  into  partnership  with  his  father,  and  in  1768,  married  his  beauti- 
ful cousin,  Mary  Bard.  He  made  New  York  his  residence  the  same  year,  and 
there  he  formed  and  executed  the  plan  of  founding  the  Medical  School  of  New 
York,  where  degrees  were  conferred  in  1769.  He  delivered  a  course  of  chemical 
lectures  in  1774,  but  the  breaking  out  of  the  Revolution  deranged  all  his  plans 
for  the  improvement  of  his  profession.  His  father  was  then  residing  at  Hyde 
Park,  in  Dutchess  county,  New  York,  and  thither  he  took  his  family,  for  safety. 
By  special  permission  of  the  British  commander,  he  went  to  New  York,  in  1777, 
and  engaged  anew  in  his  business.  But  his  old  friends,  who  were  chiefly  Whigs, 
had  all  fled,  and  he  did  not  obtain  practice  sufficient  to  pay  his  expenses.  He 
returned  to  the  country,  and  remained  there  until  the  British  evacuated  the  city 
in  the  Autumn  of  1783,  when  he  again  resumed  his  practice  there.  He  did  not 
remain  long.  Four  of  his  children  died  by  prevailing  scarlatina,  and  at  the  'same 
time  the  health  of  his  wife  began  to  fail.  He  withdrew  from  business  to  attend 
upon  her;  and  at  her  recovery,  in  1784,  he  again  commenced  the  practice  of  his 
profession,  in  New  York.  He  was  very  successful,  and  with  his  own  means,  he 
liquidated  all  the  debts  of  his  father,  which  misfortune  had  burdened  him  with. 
Having  acquired  a  competency,  he  resolved  to  retire  from  active  business,  and 
for  that  purpose  he  formed  a  partnership  with  the  late  Dr.  David  Hosack,  on  the 
1st  of  January,  1796.  This  connection  continued  four  years,  when  Dr.  Bard 
withdrew  wholly  from  the  practice  of  his  profession,  and  left  the  extensive  busi- 
ness in  the  hands  of  his  skilful  young  partner.  At  his  beautiful  seat,  near  the 
residence  of  his  father  at  Hyde  Park,  he  sat  down  in  the  retirement  of  private 
life ;  but  when,  three  years  afterward,  the  yellow  fever  appeared  in  New  York, 
he  yielded  to  the  calls  of  duty,  and  was  "the  beloved  physician  "  of  the  rich  and 
poor  during  that  trying  time.  He  finally  took  the  disease  himself,  but  the  care- 
ful nursing  of  his  wife,  and  his  own  skilful  prescriptions,  carried  him  safely 
through.  Then  again  he  left  the  field  of  active  duty  as  a  physician,  never  to 
return  to  it.  In  1813,  he  was  elected  president  of  the  College  of  Physicians  and 
Surgeons,  of  New  York,  and  held  that  office  until  his  death,  which  occurred  on 
the  24th  of  March,  1821,  at  the  age  of  seventy-nine  years.  His  disease  was 
pleurisy.  He  and  his  wife  had  often  expressed  a  desire  to  both  die  at  the  same 
time.  The  privilege  was  vouchsafed  to  them.  The  faithful  wife  died  the  clay 
preceding  the  death  of  her  husband,  of  the  same  disease,  and  they  were  buried 
in  one  grave. 


MARTHA  WASHINGTON. 


119 


MARTHA    WASHINGTON. 

THE  reflected  glory  of  Washington's  character  gave  distinction  to  all  who  were 
I.  connected  with  him  by  domestic  ties  or  the  bonds  of  consanguinity.  There 
were  many  matrons  of  his  day,  equally  noble  and  virtuous  as  she  who  bore  him, 
yet  "Mary,  the  mother  of  Washington,"  appears  the  most  illustrious  of  them  all. 
Beauty,  accomplishments  and  noble  worth  belonged  to  Martha  Dandridge  as  a 
maiden,  and  Martha  Custis  as  a  wife  and  mother,  but  her  crowning  glory  in  the 
world's  esteem  is  the  fact  that  she  was  the  bosom  companion  of  the  Father  of 
his  Country.  Martha  Dandridge  was  born  in  New  Kent  county,  Virginia,  in 
May,  1732,  about  three  months  later  than  her  illustrious  husband.  In  1749, 
she  married  Daniel  Parke  Custis,  of  New  Kent,  one  of  the  wealthiest  planters 
of  Eastern  Virginia,  and  settled,  with  her  husband,  on  the  banks  of  the  Pamun- 
key  river,  where  she  bore  four  children.  Her  husband  died  when  she  was  about 
twenty-five  years  of  age,  leaving  her  with  two  surviving  children  and  a  large 
fortune  in  lands  and  money.1  She  became  acquainted  with  Colonel  Washington, 
in  1758,  when  his  greatness  was  fast  unfolding ;  and  on  the  6th  of  January, 
1759,  they  were  married.  By  the  bequest  of  his  half-brother,  Lawrence  Wash- 
ington, he  owned  the  beautiful  estate  of  Mount  Vernon,  on  the  Potomac,  and 

1.  He  left  her  thirty  thousand  pounds  sterling  (about  $148,000)  in  certificates  of  deposits  in  the  Bank 
of  England.  These  were  in  an  iron  chest,  yet  in  the  possession  of  her  only  surviving  grand-child,  George 
Washington  Parke  Custis,  Esq.,  of  Arlington  House,  Virginia. 


120  JOSHUA  BARNEY. 


there  they  made  their  home  during  the  remainder  of  their  lives.  Occasionally, 
during  the  War  for  Independence,  Mrs.  Washington  visited  her  husband  in 
camp,  and  shared  his  honors,  his  anxieties,  and  his  hopes.  Almost  at  the  very 
hour  of  his  great  victory  at  Yorktown,  her  only  son,  who  was  Washington's  aid, 
expired  a  few  miles  distant  from  the  scene  of  carnage ;  and  with  the  shout  of 
triumph,  that  filled  .  his  mother's  heart  with  joy,  came  a  stern  messenger  with 
tidings  that  poured  it  full  of  woe.1 

While  her  husband  was  President  of  the  United  States,  Mrs.  Washington 
presided  with  dignity  over  the  executive  mansion,  both  in  Now  York  and  Phil- 
adelphia ;  but  the  quiet  of  domestic  life  had  more  charms  for  her  than  the  pomp 
of  place,  and  she  rejoiced  greatly  when  both  sat  down  again,  at  Mount  Vernon, 
to  enjoy  the  repose  which  declining  age  coveted.  But  that  pleasant  dream  of 
life  soon  vanished,  for  her  companion  was  taken  away  by  death  a  little  more 
than  two  years  afterward.  When  she  was  certified  of  the  departure  of  his  spirit, 
she  said,  " "Tis  well;  all  is  now  over;  I  shall  soon  follow  him;  I  have  no  more 
trials  to  pass  through."  In  less  than  thirty  months  afterward  the  stricken  widow 
was  laid  in  the  tomb,  at  the  age  of  almost  seventy-one  years.  In  marble  sar- 
cophigi  their  remains  now  lie  together,  at  Mount  Yernon — that  Mecca  of  many 
pilgrims. 


JOSHUA    BARNEY. 

SEVERAL  of  the  naval  commanders  who  won  glory  for  themselves  and  coun- 
try during  the  war  with  England  in  1812-'15,  commenced  their  nautical 
career,  and  learned  their  earliest  nautical  lessons,  during  the  War  of  the  Revo- 
lution. In  that  earlier  naval  school,  Joshua  Barney  was  educated  for  his  pro- 
fession. He  was  born  in  the  city  of  Baltimore,  on  the  6th  of  July,  1759.  Ho 
made  several  sea  voyages  while  yet  a  lad,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  War  for 
Independence,  he  entered  the  sloop,  Hornet,  as  master's  mate,  and  accompanied 
the  fleet  of  Commodore  Hopkins  to  the  West  India  seas,  in  1775.  He  was  at 
the  capture  of  New  Providence,2  and  for  his  bravery  there  was  promoted  to  a 
lieutenantcy.  After  being  made  prisoner  and  released  three  different  times,  ho 
assisted  in  conquering  a  valuable  prize,  in  the  Autumn  of  1779,  which  was  taken 
into  Philadelphia.  The  following  year  he  married  the  daughter  of  alderman  Bed- 
ford of  that  city,  spent  the  honey-moon  with  his  bride,  and  then  repaired  to  Bal- 
timore to  resume  his  naval  duties.  He  was  soon  afterward  made  a  prisoner, 
and  sent  to  England,  where  he  escaped  from  a  cruel  confinement  and  returned 
to  America.  In  1782,  he  was  placed  in  command  of  the  Hyder  Alhj,  of  sixteen 
guns,  belonging  to  the  State  of  Pennsylvania.  In  April,  of  that  year,  ho  cap- 
tured the  British  ship,  General  Monk,  after  an  action  of  twenty-six  minutes. 
This  vessel  was  bought  by  the  United  States,  and  in  September,  it  sailed  for 
France,  with  Barney  as  commander,  who  bore  dispatches  for  Dr.  Franklin,  at 
Paris.  In  that  vessel  he  brought  back  the  French  loan  to  the  United  States  in 
chests  of  gold  and  barrels  of  silver.  Peace  soon  came,  and  ho  left  the  service, 
for  awhile. 

1.  Mr.  Custis  died  at  Eltham,  about  thirty-five  miles  from  Yorktown,  from  the  effects  of  camp  fever. 
Washington  hastened  thither  as  soon  as  public  affairs  at  camp  would  allow  him.     Mrs.  Washington  and 
Dr.  Craik  were  already  there.     The  latter  informed  the  chief,  that  his  beloved  step-son  had  just  ex- 
pired, on  his  arrival.     He  wept  like  a  child  ;  and  when  he  recovered  himself,  he  said  to  the  weeping 
mother,  "  I  adopt  his  two  younger  children  as  my  own,  from  this  hour."    These  were  the  present  pro- 
prietor of  Arlington  House,  and  the  late  Eleanor  Parke  Custis,  wife  of  Major  Lawrence  Lewis,  the 
favorite  nephew  of  Washington. 

2.  One  of  the  Bahama  Islands.    They  took  possession  of  the  town  now  called  Nassau,  and  made  the 
governor  prisoner.    He  was  afterward  exchanged  for  Lord  Stirling,  who  was  made  prisoner  at  the  battlo 
near  Brooklin,  at  the  close  of  August,  1776. 


JOHN   BARRY.  121 


In  1796,  Captain  Barney  went  to  France,  with  Mr.  Monroe,  as  the  bearer  oi* 
the  American  nag  to  the  National  Convention.  He  there  accepted  an  invitation 
to  take  command  of  a  French  squadron,  but  resigned  his  commission  in  1800, 
and  returned  to  America.  Commodore  Barney  was  among  the  most  efficient 
commanders  in  service,  when  the  United  States  declared  war  against  England, 
in  1812  ;  and  the  following  year,  he  had  charge  of  a  flotilla  in  the  Chesapeake 
Bay  for  the  protection  of  the  coast.  When  the  British  invaded  Maryland,  and 
pressed  forward  toward  "Washington  city,  near  the  close  of  the  Summer  of  1814, 
Barney  abandoned  his  flotilla,  and  with  his  marines,  engaged  in  a  battle  with 
the  enemy  at  Bladensburg,  where  he  wa^  wounded  in  the  thigh  by  a  musket  ball, 
which  was  never  extracted.  In  May,  1815,  he  was  sent  on  a  mission  to  Europe, 
and  on  his  return  in  the  ensuing  Autumn,  he  retired  to  private  life,  after  having 
been  in  service  forty-one  years,  and  fought  twenty-six  battles  and  one  duel.  He 
visited  Kentucky,  in  1817,  and  started  to  emigrate  thither  the  following  year. 
When  about  to  embark  on  the  Ohio,  at  Pittsburg  he  was  taken  ill,  and  died 
there  on  the  1st  of  December,  1818,  at  the  age  of  fifty-nine  years. 


JOHN    BAR  II  Y. 

"  THE  first  commodore  in  the  American  Navy,"  was  not  the  brave  John  Barry, 
L  as  is  generally  asserted.  Yet  he  was  in  active  service  as  commander, 
about  as  early  as  Esek  Hopkins,  to  whom  that  honor,  conferred  by  Congress, 
properly  belongs.  Barry  was  a  native  of  "Wexford,  in  Ireland,  where  he  was 
born  in  1745.  He  was  educated  for  the  sea,  and  at  the  age  of  fifteen  years  he 
came  to  America,  and  was  employed  as  commander  in  the  merchant  service, 
until  the  Revolution  commenced.  When,  in  February,  1776,  Commodore  Hop- 
kins sailed  with  a  small  squadron  against  the  fleet  of  Dunmore,  then  committing 
depredations  on  the  Virginia  coast,  Barry  left  the  Delaware,  in  the  Lexington,  of 
sixteen  guns,  to  clear  the  Virginia  waters  of  the  numerous  small  cruisers  of  the 
enemy  which  infested  them.  He  performed  that  service  well ;  and  prior  to  the 
promulgation  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  he  was  promoted  to  the  frigate, 
Effingham.  Circumstances  prevented  his  departure  in  that  vessel  from  the  Del- 
aware, and  at  the  head  of  a  volunteer  company,  under  the  command  of  General 
Cadwalader,  he  assisted  in  some  of  the  operations  which  resulted  in  the  capture 
of  the  Hessians  at  Trenton,  near  the  close  of  1776.  He  was  with  the  army 
during  the  succeeding  Winter ;  and  when,  the  next  Autumn,  the  British  took 
possession  of  Philadelphia,  he  went  up  the  Delaware  with  the  Effingham,  and 
endeavored  to  save  her,  at  the  same  time  indignantly  refusing  an  offered  bribe 
to  employ  her  in  the  king's  service.  He  greatly  annoyed  the  British  shipping 
in  the  Delaware,  by  secret  night  enterprises  in  small  boats.  In  September,  1778, 
his  sphere  of  usefulness  was  enlarged  by  being  appointed  to  the  command  of  the 
Raleigh,  of  thirty-two  guns,  in  which  he  sailed  from  Boston.  He  fell  in  with  a 
British  fleet,  and  after  a  severe  action  of  many  hours,  he  was  compelled  to  run 
his  vessel  ashore,  upon  a  barren  island.  IIo  had  terribly  handled  his  antagonists, 
and  but  for  tho  treachery  of  one  of  his  men,  he  would  have  burned  the  Raleigh, 
and  deprived  the  enemy  of  all  advantage.  A  court-martial  honorably  acquitted 
him  of  all  blame. 

Early  in  1781,  Captain  Barry  took  command  of  the  frigate  Alliance,  and  in 
that  vessel  ho  conveyed  to  L'Orient,  Colonel  John  Laurens,  a  special  ambassador 
to  the  court  of  France.  In  May  ho  had  an  engagement  with  two  English  ves- 
sels, in  which  he  was  severely  wounded.  Ho  was  victorious,  and  his  antag- 

6 


122  RICHARD  GRIDLEY. 

onists  became  prizes.  In  the  Autumn,  Captain  Barry  conveyed  La  Fayette  and 
Count  Noailles  to  France,  in  the  Alliance,  and  then  he  cruised  successfully  among 
the  West  India  islands,  until  March,  1782,  when  he  encountered  a  British 
squadron.  His  skill,  coolness,  and  bravery,  were  eminently  displayed  in  that 
engagement.  He  fought  chiefly  in  defence  of  the  American  sloop-of-war,  Luzerne, 
which  was  conveying  a  large  amount  of  specie.  It  was  saved,  and  contributed 
to  found  the  Bank  of  North  America,1  the  first  institution  of  the  kind  in  the 
United  States.  After  the  close  of  the  war,  Captain  Barry  continued  in  the  ser- 
vice, and  he  was  efficient  in  protecting  our  commerce  from  the  depredations  of 
French  vessels,  when  war  between  France  and  the  United  States  commenced 
on  the  ocean,  in  1797.  Captain  Barry  died  at  Philadelphia,  on  the  13th  of 
September,  1803,  at  the  age  of  fifty-eight  years. 


RICHARD    GRIDLEY. 

YERY  few  Americans  directed  their  attention  to  military  engineering,  previous 
to  the  Revolution,  and  therefore  those  French  engineers  who  proffered 
their  services  to  the  Continental  Congress,  were  eagerly  accepted  and  commis- 
sioned. At  the  opening  of  the  war,  near  Boston,  in  1775,  Richard  Gridley  was 
the  only  efficient  American  engineer  in  the  army.  He  was  a  native  of  Boston, 
where  he  was  born  in  1711.  His  brother,  Jeremy,  was  the  able  attorney-general 
of  Massachusetts,  who  defended  the  Writs  of  Assistance, 2  and  other  government 
measures,  against  the  patriotic  attacks  of  James  Otis,  and  his  compatriots.  We 
have  no  record  of  the  early  life  of  Richard.  His  first  appearance  before  posterity 
was  as  an  engineer  in  the  provincial  army,  sent  to  capture  the  strong  fortress 
of  Louisburg,  on  Cape  Breton,  in  1745.  After  that  event,  he  entered  the  reg- 
ular army,  and  in  1755,  he  was  lieutenant-colonel  of  infantry,  and  chief  engineer. 
He  accompanied  General  Winslow,  in  that  capacity,  to  Albany,  in  the  Summer 
of  1756,  preparatory  to  an  expedition  against  Crown  Point,  on  Lake  Champlain. 
He  proceeded  to  erect  fortifications  at  the  head  of  Lake  George.  The  expedi- 
tion failed,  through  the  tardiness  of  Lord  London.  In  1758,  Colonel  Gridley 
served  under  General  Amhefet,  and  was  with  Wolfe,  at  Quebec.  When  the 
War  for  Independence  began  at  Lexington  and  Concord,  the  patriotism  and 
skill  of  Colonel  Gridley  caused  his  appointment  of  chief  engineer  of  the  army 
that  soon  gathered  around  Boston ;  and  under  his  directions,  all  the  fortifications 
erected  during  the  Summer  of  1775,  and  Winter  of  1776,  in  that  vicinity,  were 
constructed.  Up  to  that  time  he  had  received  the  half-pay  of  a  British  officer, 
and  possessed  Magdalen  Island  as  a  gift  for  his  services  under  Wolfe.  He  was 
wounded  in  the  battle  on  Breed's  ["Bunker's"]  Hill,  yet  not  so  as  to  disable 
him.  In  September,  1775,  Congress  gave  him  the  commission  of  a  major- 
general,  and  made  him  commander-in-chief  of  the  Continental  artillery,  to  which 
office  Colonel  Henry  Knox  succeeded  in  November  following.  After  the  British 
left  Boston,  in  March,  1776,  General  Gridley  was  engaged  in  throwing  up  for- 
tifications at  several  points  about  the  Harbor.  He  died  at  Stoughton,  Massa- 
chusetts, on  the  21st  of  June,  1796,  in  the  eighty-fifth  year  of  his  age. 

1.  See  sketch  of  Robert  Morris. 

2,  General  search-warrants,  -which  allowed  the  officers  of  the  king  to  break  open  any  citizen's  store  or 
dwelling  to  search  for  contraband  merchandise.    It  opened  a  way  to  many  abuses,  and  the  people 
violently  opposed  the  measure.    This  was  among  the  first  of  those  government  measures  which  drove 
the  Americans  into  rebellion. 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 


123 


THOMAS   JEFFERSON. 

THE  only  material  memorials  of  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
JL  in  our  country,  are  a  dilapidated  granite  obelisk  over  his  neglected  grave 
at  Monticello;1  a  bronze  statue  in  front  of  the  President's  House  at  Washington 
city,  erected  by  private  munificence ;  a  fine  statue  upon  a  monument  to  "Wash- 
ington, erected  by  the  State  of  Virginia,  at  Richmond,  and  a  few  busts.  The 
nation  has  quarried  no  stone  for  his  monument,  nor  is  it  requisite.  The  DEC- 
LARATION" OF  INDEPENDENCE,  written  on  parchment,  and  preserved  in  the  mem- 
ory of  generations,  is  a  nobler  monument  than  can  be  wrought  from  brass  or 
marble. 

Thomas  Jefferson  was  born  at  Shadwell,  Albemarle  county,  Virginia,  on  the 
13th  of  April,  I1? 43.  He  was  of  "Welsh  descent.  "When  his  father  died,  his 
mother  was  left  with  Thomas  and  another  son,  and  six  little  daughters.  They 


1.  It  is  within  an  enclosed  family  burial -ground,  just  in  the  edge  of  the  forest  which  covers  the  western 
portion  of  Monticello.  Visitors,  with  Vandal  hand,  have  so  broken  off  pieces  of  the  obelisk,  to  carry 
away  with  them,  that  it  now  presents  a  sad  appearance.  To  preserve  the  marble  tablet,  on  which  is  the 
following  inscription,  written  by  Jefferson  himself,  the  present  [1855]  proprietor  has  removed  it  to  his 
house : 

"Here  lies  buried,  THOMAS  JEFFERSON,  Author  of  the  Declaration  of  American  Independence;  of 
the  Statute  of  Virginia  for  Religious  Freedom ;  and  Father  of  the  University  of  Virginia." 


124  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

were  blessed  with  a  handsome  estate,  and  that  portion  of  it  called  Monticello 
(little  mountain),  near  the  then  hamlet  of  Charlottesville,  fell  to  Thomas  when 
he  reached  his  majority.  He  was  a  student  in  William  and  Mary  College,  at 
Williamsburg,  about  two  years,  and  then  commenced  the  study  of  law  with 
George  "Wythe,  afterward  Chancellor  of  Virginia.  While  yet  a  student,  in  1765, 
he  heard  Patrick  Henry's  famous  speech  against  the  Stamp  Act,  and  it  lighted 
a  flame  of  patriotism  in  young  Jefferson's  soul  that  burned  brighter  and  brighter 
until  the  hour  of  fearless  action  arrived.  In  1767,  ho  commenced  the  practice 
of  law;  and  in  1769,  he  first  appeared  in  public  life  as  a  member  of  the  Virginia 
Assembly.  He  was  one  of  the  most  active  workers  in  that  body,  until  called  to 
more  influential  duties  as  member  of  the  Continental  Congress,  in  1775.  He 
was  always  remarkable  for  his  ready  pen ;  and  as  a  member  of  the  committee 
of  correspondence,  and  by  pamphlets  and  newspaper  paragraphs,  from  1773, 
until  the  culmination  of  public  sentiment  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  he 
labored  intensely  and  potential^.1  When  Eichard  Henry  Lee's  resolution  in 
favor  of  independence  was  under  consideration,  early  in  the  Summer  of  1776, 
and  a  committee  of  five  were  appointed  to  prepare  a  preamble  in  the  form  cf  a 
Declaration,  Mr.  Jefferson,  the  youngest  of  the  committee,  was  chosen  to  make 
the  draft,  chiefly  because  of  his  facile  use  of  the  pen  in  elegant  and  appropriate 
expressions  of  sentiment.  At  his  lodgings,  in  the  house  of  Mrs.  Clymer,  in  Phil- 
adelphia, that  famous  document  was  written,  and  after  some  modifications,  it 
was  adopted  on  the  4th  of  July,  1776.  Tho  author's  name  is  appended  to  it, 
with  fifty-five  others.  Soon  afterward,  Mr.  Jefferson  resigned  his  seat  in  Con- 
gress, and  became  a  leading  actor  in  the  civil  events  of  the  Revolution  in  Vir- 
ginia, from  that  time  until  the  peace  in  1783.  He  assisted  in  revising  the  laws 
of  Virginia;  and  in  June,  1779,  he  was  elected  governor  of  the  State,  as  suc- 
cessor of  Patrick  Henry.  From  about  the  beginning  of  that  year,  until  the  close 
of  17  80,  the  British  and  German  troops,  captured  at  Saratoga,  were  quartered 
in  his  vicinity,  and  ho  greatly  endeared  himself  to  them  lay  his  uniform  kindness. 
During  his  administration,  Arnold,  the  traitor,  invaded  Virginia,  and  Cornwallis 
and  his  active  officers  overran  portions  of  the  State  along  the  James  river,  from 
Richmond  to  its  mouth.  The  fiery  Tarleton  attempted  the  capture  of  Governor 
Jefferson,  in  June,  1781,  and  almost  succeeded.2  It  was  a  most  trying  time  for 
Virginia,  and  Jefferson,  sagaciously  perceiving  that  a  military  man  was  needed 
in  the  executive  office,  declined  a  re-election,  and  was  succeeded  by  General 
Nelson,  of  Yorktown. 

Mr.  Jefferson  now  sought  the  retirement  of  private  life,  to  indulge  in  the  ge- 
nial pursuits  of  literature  and  science.3  He  was  not  permitted  to  find  happiness 
in  repose  there.  His  wife  died,  and  his  heart  was  terribly  smitten.  Then  came 
a  call  from  his  countrymen  to  represent  them  abroad,  and  at  the  close  of  1782, 
he  departed  for  Philadelphia,  to  sail  for  France,  to  assist  the  American  com- 
missioners in  their  negotiations  for  peace  with  England.  Intelligence  of  the 
accomplishment  of  that  duty  reached  him  before  his  departure,  and  he  returned 
home.  He  was  at  Annapolis  when  Washington  resigned  his  commission,  in 
December,  1783,  and  the  Address  of  President  Mifflin  to  the  chief  was  from  Mr. 
Jefferson's  pen.  In  1784,  he  went  to  France,  as  associate  diplomatist  with 
Franklin  and  Adams,  and  the  same  year  he  wrote  his  essay  on  a  money-unit,  to 
which  we  are  mainly  indebted  for  our  convenient  coins.  He  succeeded  Dr. 
Franklin  as  minister  at  the  French  court,  in  1785 ;  and  on  his  return  to  America, 


1.  His  pamphlet  entitled  "A  Summary  View  of  the  Rights  of  British  America,"  was  so  much  ad- 
mired, that  Edmund  Burke  caused  it  to  be  reprinted  in  London,  with  a  few  alterations. 

2.  Jefferson  was  advised  of  the  approach  of  Tarleton,  when  he  was  within  half  a  mile  of  his  house, 
and  escaped  by  fleeing  to  the  dark  recesses  of  Carter's  Mountain,  lying  southward  of  Monticello.     Tarle- 
ton captured  some  members  of  the  Virginia  Legislature,  then  in  session  at  Clmrlottesvillc. 

3.  His  Notes  on  Vi'-ginia  is  the  most  important  cf  the  various  productions  of  hi.s  pen. 


THOMAS   CHITTENDEN.  125 

in  1789,  before  he  reached  his  home  at  Monticello,  he  received  from  "Washington 
the  appointment  of  Secretary  of  State.  He  resigned  that  office  in  1793,  and  be- 
came the  head  of  the  republican  party,  in  opposition  to  Washington's  adminis- 
tration. In  the  Autumn  of  1796,  he  was  chosen  vice-president  of  the  United 
States,  and  in  the  Spring  of  1801,  he  took  his  seat  as  chief  magistrate  of  the 
nation.  After  eight  years  of  faithful  service  in  that  exalted  office,  he  retired 
forever,  from  public  life.  "With  untiring  perseverance  he  succeeded  in  establish- 
ing that  yet  flourishing  institution,  the  University  of  Virginia ;  arid  until  the 
last,  his  life  was  spent  in  pursuits  of  public  utility.  The  latter  years  of  his  life 
were  clouded  by  pecuniary  embarrassment.  He  sold  his  library  to  the  Federal 
Government,  in  1815,  consisting  of  six  thousand  volumes,  for  twenty -four  thousand 
dollars.  He  survived  that  great  sacrifice  eleven  years,  and  then  his  spirit  took 
its  flight,  while  his  countrymen  were  celebrating  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the 
independence  of  the  United  States.  He  died  on  the  4th  of  July,  1826,  at  the 
age  of  eighty-three  years.1 


THOMAS    CHITTENDEN. 

THERE  are  crises  in  the  history  of  States,  sometimes  occurring  in  their  infancy, 
1  at  other  times  in  their  maturity,  when  the  concentration  of  influence  in  one 
man  has  made  him  instrumental  in  conferring  great  benefits  upon  the  public. 
Thomas  Chittenden,  the  first  governor  of  the  independent  iState  of  Vermont,  was 
an  illustration  of  this  fact.  He  was  born  at  East  Guilford,  Connecticut,  on  the 
6th  of  January,  1729;  received  only  the  meagre  rudiments  of  an  English  educa- 
tion, then  furnished  by  the  common  schools,  and  married  at  the  early  age  of 
twenty  years.  Then  he  made  his  residence  at  Salisbury ;  and  his  natural  abil- 
ities, combined  with  a  pleasing  person  and  address,  soon  made  him  popular.  He 
was  chosen  commander  of  a  militia  regiment,  and  for  several  years  he  represented 
his  district  in  the  legislature  of  Connecticut.  Unlearned  as  he  was,  he  became 
a  leading  man ;  and  by  performing  the  duties  of  a  justice  of  the  peace  for  Litch- 
field  county,  for  several  years,  he  became  acquainted  with  the  laws  and  the 
proper  manner  of  administering  them.  Agriculture  was  his  delight,  and  every 
day  spared  from  his  official  duties  was  devoted  to  a  personal  engagement  in  the 
affairs  of  his  farm.  His  family  had  a  rapid  growth,  and  he  emigrated  to  the 
borders  of  the  Onion  river,2  in  1774,  on  what  was  known  as  the  New  Hampshire 
Grants,  on  the  east  side  of  Lake  Champlain,  for  the  purpose  of  laying  the  foun- 
dations of  a  fortune  for  his  children.  There,  separated  by  an  almost  trackless 
wilderness  from  his  early  friends,  he  opened  many  fertile  acres  to  the  blessed 
sunlight,  and  invited  settlers  to  come  and  form  the  nucleus  of  a  State.  Soon, 
political  agitations  disturbed  his  repose;  and,  in  1775,  he  was  appointed  one  of 
a  committee  to  visit  the  Continental  Congress  at  Philadelphia,  and  ask  political 
advice.  The  threatening  aspect  of  affairs  in  the  North,  toward  the  close  of  the 
Summer  of  1776,  caused  the  settlers  to  flee  southward,  and  Mr.  Chittenden  took 
up  his  abode  in  Arlington,  in  the  present  Bennington  county,  where  he  was 
made  president  of  the  committee  of  safety.  He  warmly  espoused  the  cause  of 
the  people  of  the  New  Hampshire  Grants,  in  their  controversy  with  New  York.3 

1.  Sec  sketch  of  John  Adams. 

2.  The  Indian  name  of  this  river  was  Ouinooxlit.     His  location  was  in  the  present  town  ofWilliston, 
Vermont,  south-east  from  Burlington. 

3.  The  State  of  New  York  claimed  jurisdiction  over  the  present  territory  of  Vermont,  then  known  as 
the  New  Hampshire  Grants,  and  a  very  warm  dispute  arose.     Bloodshed  was  often  threatened,  but  the 
matter  was  finally  settled  by  a  purchase  of  the  claims  of  New  York  for  $30,000. 


126  PATRICK  HENKY. 


He  was  one  of  the  committee  who  drafted  a  declaration  of  the  independence  of 
Vermont,1  adopted  on  the  15th  of  January,  1777.  He  also  assisted  in  the  for- 
mation of  a  State  constitution,  in  July,  1777,  and  was  elected  the  first  governor 
under  it.  That  office  he  held  until  his  death,  with  the  exception  of  one  year. 
When,  in  1780,  the  British  authorities  in  Canada  supposed  the  people  of  Ver- 
mont to  be  royally  inclined  (because  they  would  not  join  the  confederation  of 
States),  and  appointed  a  commission  to  confer  with  the  dissatisfied  colonists, 
Governor  Chittenden  was  chosen  one  of  the  committee  on  the  part  of  the  Ver- 
mont people.  That  whole  matter  was  so  adroitly  managed  by  Chittenden,  Allen, 
and  others,  for  three  years,  that  the  authorities  of  both  Canada  and  the  United 
States  were  deceived.  They  thus  secured  Vermont  from  easy  British  invasion 
until  peace  was  sure,  when  that  State  became  a  member  of  the  great  confederac}-. 
The  course  of  the  Vermont  leaders,  though  highly  patriotic,  was  regarded  with 
suspicion,  until  the  mask  was  removed.  At  the  close  of  the  war,  Governor 
Chittenden  returned  to  Williston,  with  his  family,  where  he  passed  the  remain- 
der of  his  days.  He  resigned  the  office  of  governor  in  the  Summer  of  1797,  and 
on  the  25th  of  August,  of  that  year,  he  died,  in  the  sixty-ninth  year  of  his  age. 


PATRICK    HENRY. 

"/^IVEme  Liberty,  or  give  me  Death!"  were  the  burning  words  which  fell 
\T  from  the  lips  of  Patrick  Henry,  at  the  beginning  of  the  "War  for  Independ- 
ence, and  aroused  the  Continent  to  more  vigorous  and  united  action.2  He  was 
the  son  of  a  Virginia  planter  in  Hanover  county,  and  was  born  on  the  29th  of 
May,  1736.  At  the  age  often  years  he  was  taken  from  school,  and  commenced 
the  study  of  Latin  in  his  father's  house.  He  had  some  taste  for  mathematics, 
but  a  love  of  idleness,  as  manifested  by  his  frequent  hunting  and  fishing  excur- 
sions, for  sport,  and  utter  aversion  to  mental  labor,  gave  prophecies  of  a  useless 
life.  At  twenty-one  years  of  age,  he  engaged  in  trade,  but  neglect  of  business 
soon  brought  bankruptcy.  He  had  married  at  eighteen,  and  passed  most  of  his 
time  in  idleness  at  the  tavern  of  his  father-in-law,  in  Hanover,  where  he  often 
served  customers  at  the  bar.  As  a  last  resort,  he  studied  law  diligently  for  six 
weeks,  obtained  a  license  to  practice,  but  he  was  twenty-seven  years  of  age  be- 
fore he  was  known  to  himself  or  others,  except  as  a  lazy  pettifogger.  Then  he 
was  employed  in  the  celebrated  Parsons'  cause,3  and  in  the  old  Hanover  court- 
house, with  his  father  on  the  bench  as  judge,  and  more  than  twenty  of  the  most 
learned  men  in  the  colony  before  him,  his  genius  as  an  orator  and  advocate 
beamed  forth  in  that  awful  splendor,  so  eloquently  described  by  "Wirt.  From 
that  period  he  rose  rapidly  to  the  head  of  his  profession.  In  1764,  he  made 
Louisa  county  his  residence,  and  his  fame  was  greatly  heightened  by  a  noble 
defence  of  the  right  of  suffrage,  which,  as  a  lawyer,  he  made  before  the  House 
of  Burgesses,  that  year.  In  1765,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  that  house,  and 
during  that  memorable  session,  he  made  his  great  speech  against  the  Stamp 

1.  Partly  owing  to  the  troubles  with  New  York.  Vermont  would  not  join  the  confederacy  in  1777,  but, 
at  a  convention  at  Westminster,  it  was  declared  an  independent  State.    It  was  admitted  into  the  Union 
m  February,  1791. 

2.  In  the  Virginia  convention,  held  in  St.  John's  chnrch  at  Richmond,  in  March,  1775.    It  was  one  of 
the  most  powerful  speeches  ever  made  by  the  great  orator,  and  ended  with  the  words  quoted  above. 
They  were  afterward  placed  on  flags,  and  adopted  as  a  motto  nnder  many  circumstances. 

3.  This  was  a  contest  between  the  clergy  and  the  State  legislature,  on  the  question  of  an  annual  stipend 
claimed  by  the  former.     A  decision  of  the  court  had  left  nothing  undetermined  but  the  amount  of 
damage.     Henry's  eloquence  electrified  judge,  jury,  and  people.    The  jury  brought  in  a  verdict  of  one 
penny  damages,  and  the  people  took  Henry  upon  their  shoulders,  and  carried  him  in  triumph  about  the 
court-house  yard. 


PATRICK  HENRY. 


127 


Act.1  In  1769,  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar  of, the  general  court,  and  was  recog- 
nized as  a  leader,  in  legal  and  political  matters,  until  the  Revolution  broke  out. 
He  was  a  member  of  the  first  Continental  Congress,  in  1774,  and  gave  the  first 
impulse  to  its  business  ;2  and  when,  in  17  75,  Governor  Dunmore  attempted  to  rob 
the  colony  of  gunpowder,  by  having  it  conveyed  on  board  a  British  war-vessel, 
Patrick  Henry,  at  the  head  of  resolute  armed  patriots,  compelled  him  to  pay  its 
value  in  money.  In  1776,  Henry  was  elected  the  first  republican  governor  of 
Virginia,  and  was  reflected  three  successive  years,  when  he  was  succeeded  by 
Thomas  Jefferson.  During  the  whole  struggle,  he  was  one  of  the  most  efficient 
public  officers  of  the  State;  and  in  1784,  he  was  again  chosen  governor. 

Patrick  Henry  was  a  consistent  advocate  of  State  Rights,  and  was  ever  jealous 
of  any  infringement  upon  them.     For  that  reason,  he  was  opposed  to  the  Fed- 

1.  He  had  introduced  a  series  of  resolutions,  highly  tinctured  with  rebellious  doctrines,  and  supported 
them  with  his  wonderful  eloquence.     The  house  was  greatly  excited  ;  and  when,  at  length,  he  alluded 
to  tyrants,  and  said,  "  Caesar  had  his  Brutus,  Charles  the  First  his  Cromwell,  and  George  the  Third—" 
there  was  a  cry  of  "  Treason  !  treason!"    He  paused  a  moment,  and  then  said,  "may  profit  by  their 
example.    If  that  be  Treason,  make  the  most  of  it." 

2.  When  all  was  doubt  and  hesitation'at  the  opening  of  the  session,  and  no  one  seemed  ready  to  take  the 
first  step,  a  plain  man,  dressed  in  ministers'  grey,  arose  and  proposed  action.     "Who  is  it?  who  is  it?" 
asked  several  members.     "  Patrick  Henry,"  replied  the  soft  voice  of  his  colleague,  Peyton  Randolph. 


128  ETHAN  ALLEN. 


oral  Constitution,  and  in  the  Virginia  convention,  called  in  1788,  to  consider  it, 
he  opposed  its  ratification  with  all  the  power  of  his  great  eloquence.  He  finally 
acquiesced,  when  it  became  the  organic  law  of  the  Republic,  and  used  all  his 
efforts  to  give  it  a  fair  trial  and  make  it  successful.  Washington  nominated  him 
for  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State,  in  1795,  but  Mr.  Henry  declined  it.  In  1799, 
President  Adams  appointed  him  an  envoy  to  France,  with  Ellsworth  and  Mur- 
ray, but  feeble  health  and  advanced  age  compelled  him  to  decline  an  office  he 
would  have  been  pleased  to  accept.  A  few  weeks  afterward,  his  disease  became 
alarmingly  active,  and  he  expired  at  his  seat,  at  Red  Hill,  in  Charlotte  county, 
on  the  6th  of  June,  1799,  at  the  age  of  almost  sixty-three  years.  Governor 
Henry  was  twice  married.  t  By  his  first  wife  he  had  six  children,  and  nine  by 
the  second.  His  widow  married  the  late  Judge  Winston,  and  died  in  Halifax 
county,  Virginia,  in  February,  1831. 


ETHAN    ALLEN. 

np'HE  name  of  Green  Mountain  Boys  is  always  associated  with  ideas  of  personal 
1  valor  and  unflinching  patriotism;  and  Ethan  Allen  has  ever  been  regarded 
as  the  impersonation  of  the  proverbial  independence  of  character,  of  the  early 
settlers  along  the  eastern  shores  of  Lake  Champlain.  He  was  born  in  Litchfield 
county,  Connecticut,  near  the  borders  of  New  York,  and  at  an  early  age  emi- 
grated to  the  region  above  alluded  to,  known  as  the  New  Hampshire  Grants, 
now  Vermont.  At  about  the  year  1770,  a  violent  controversy  arose  between 
the  settlers  of  this  tract  and  the  civil  authorities  of  New  York,  respecting  ter- 
ritorial claims.  Ethan  Allen  took  an  active  part  in  the  controversy,  and  became 
a  leader  of  the  Green  Mountain  Boys,  as  the  settlers  were  called,  against  the 
alleged  usurpations  of  the  New  York  government.1  The  latter  finally  declared 
Allen  and  his  associates  to  be  outlaws,  offered  fifty  pounds  colonial  currency  for 
his  apprehension,2  and  contemplated  an  armed  invasion  of  the  territory.  Allen 
believed  himself  in  the  right,  and  boldly  maintained  his  position,  until  a  common 
danger  alarmed  all  the  colonies,  and  made  them  unite  as  brethren  for  common 
defence.  When  the  news  of  the  affair  at  Lexington  reached  those  remote 
settlers,  they  were  electrified  with  zeal  for  the  maintenance  of  freedom ;  and  in 
less  than  thirty  days  afterward,  we  find  Colonel  Allen  and  some  of  his  Green 
Mountain  boys  and  Massachusetts  militia,  in  concert  with  Colonel  Benedict 
Arnold  and  some  Connecticut  men,  wresting  the  strong  fortresses  of  Ticonderoga 
and  Crown  Point  from  the  British.3  Early  in  the  following  Autumn,  Colonel 
Allen  was  sent  to  Canada,  to  ascertain  tire  temper  of  the  people  there ;  and  in 
an  attempt,  with  Colonel  Brown,  to  capture  Montreal,  with  a  small  force,  he  was 
made  a  prisoner,  put  in  irons  on  board  a  vessel,  and  sent  to  England,  with  the 
assurance  that  he  would  be  hanged.  Great  crowds  flocked  to  see  him,  on  his 
arrival,  for  the  fame  of  his  exploits  had  reached  England.  His  grotesque  garb 
attracted  great  attention.  He  was  regarded  almost  as  a  strange  wild  beast  of 
the  forest,  and  for  more  than  a  year  he  was  kept  a  close  prisoner. 

In  January,  1776,  Colonel  Allen  was  sent,  in  a  frigate,  to  Halifax,  where  he 

1.  See  Note  3,  p.  125. 

2.  He  came  very  near  being  captured  by  a  party  of  New  Yorkers,  while  on  a  visit  to  his  friends  in 
Salisbury.     They  intended  to  seize  him,  and  convey  him  to  the  jai!  at  Poughkeepsie. 

3.  When  Allen  thundered  at  the  door  of  the  commander  of  the  garrison  of  Ticonderoga,  after  the 
soldiers  were  subdued,  and  that  affrighted  official  a*ked  by  what  Authority  he  demanded  a  surrender,  the 
colonel's  reply  was.  "  By  the  Great  Jehovah  and  the  Continental  Congress  !"     It  was  on  the  morning  of 
the  day  when  Congress  was  to  assemble  at  Philadelphia. 


WILLIAM  FKANKLIN.  129 

remained  in  jail  until  the  following  October,  when  he  was  conveyed  to  New 
York,  then' the  British  head-quarters.  There  he  was  kept,  part  of  the  time  on 
parole  on  Long  Island,  and  part  of  the  time  in  the  Provost  and  other  prisons  in 
New  York,  until  May,  1778,  when  he  was  exchanged  for  Colonel  Campbell  of 
the  British  army.  His  health  had  suffered  much  during  his  imprisonment,  yet 
he  repaired  to  head-quarters,  and  offered  his  services  to  Washington,  when  his 
strength  should  be  restored.  He  arrived  at  Bennington,  his  place  of  residence, 
on  the  evening  of  the  last  day  of  May,  and  he  was  welcomed  by  booming  can- 
nons and  the  huzzas  of  the  people.  The  civil  authorities  of  the  now  independent 
State  of  Vermont  commissioned  him  major-general  of  the  State  militia,  but  an 
opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  his  bravery  and  military  skill  did  not  again  occur. 
He  was  active,  with  Governor  Chittenden  and  others,  in  the  adroit  political 
game  played  by  Yermont  with  the  authorities  of  the  United  States  and  of  Can- 
ada ;  and  his  patriotism  ever  burned  pure,  even  at  a  time  when  General  Clinton 
wrote  to  Lord  George  Germain,  "There  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  Ethan 
Allen  has  quitted  the  rebel  cause."  General  Allen  continued  active  in  public 
affairs  after  the  war,  until  his  death,  which  occurred  suddenly  at  Colchester,  on 
the  13th  of  February,  1789,  when  he  was  about  sixty  years  of  age.  Colonel 
Allen  was  the  author  of  several  political  pamphlets ;  a  theological  work,  entitled 
Oracles  of  Reason,  and  a  Narrative  of  his  Observations  during  his  captivity.1 


WILLIAM    FRANKLIN. 

JT  is  worthy  of  note,  that  one  of  the  most  distinguished  Loyalists  during  the 
War  for  Independence,  was  the  only  son  of  one  of  the  noblest  Patriots  in 
that  struggle.  That  Loyalist  was  William,  the  first-born  child  of  Benjamin 
Franklin.  He  was  born  in  Philadelphia,  in  1731,  and  was  carefully  educated 
by  his  father,  for  professional  life.  He  was  postmaster  of  the  city  of  Philadel- 
phia ;  clerk  of  the  Assembly  for  awhile ;  and  entered  the  provincial  army  as 
captain,  early  in  the  French  and  Indian  war.  He  was  warmly  commended  for 
his  services  at  Ticonderoga.  After  the  war,  he  went  to  England  with  his  father, 
and  in  Scotland  he  became  acquainted  with  the  Earl  of  Bute,  who,  for  almost  ten 
years,  had  great  influence  in  the  councils  of  George  the  Third.  In  17  63,  William 
Franklin  was  appointed  governor  of  New  Jersey,  and  was  very  popular  for  a 
time.  Like  all  other  royal  governors,  he  soon  assumed  undue  personal  dignity, 
and  quarrelled  with  the  legislature.  Ho  was  a  thorough  monarchist  in  principle, 
and  when  the  disputes  between  the  colonists  and  the  imperial  government  com- 
menced in  earnest,  he  did  not  hesitate  in  taking  sides  with  the  crown,  in  opposi- 
tion to  his  distinguished  father.  At  the  beginning  of  1774,  all  intercourse  be- 
tween father  and  son  was  suspended,  and  as  the  political  troubles  thickened,  the 
breach  widened.  Month  after  month  the  breach  between  the  governor  and  the 
New  Jersey  Assembly  also  widened ;  and  finally  a  Provincial  Congress  a,t  Tren- 
ton assumed  political  authority,  and  royal  government  ceased  in  that  province. 
A  State  Constitution  was  adopted  in  July,  1776,  and  William  Livingston  became 

1.  The  stern  integrity  and  truthfulness  of  Colonel  Allen  were  well  illustrated  on  one  occasion,  when 
he  was  prosecuted  for  the  payment  of  a  note  for  sixty  pounds,  given  to  a  man  in  Boston.  It  was  sent  to 
Vermont  for  collection,  but  it  was  inconvenient  for  him  to  pay  it  then,  and  he  was  sued.  The  trial  came 
on,  and  his  lawyer,  in  order  to  postpone  the  matter,  denied  the  genuineness  of  the  signature.  To  prove 
it,  it  would  be  necessary  to  send  to  Boston  for  a  witness.  Allen  was  in  a  remote  part  of  the  court-room, 
when  the  lawyer  denied  the  signature.  With  long  strides  Allen  rushed  through  the  crowd,  and,  stand- 
ing before  his  advocate,  he  said,  in  angry  tone,  "  Mr ,  I  did  not  hire  you  to  come  here  and  lie.  That 

is  a  true  note— I  signed  it— I  '11  swear  to  it— and  I  '11  pay  it.  I  want  no  shuffling— I  want  time.  What 
I  employed  you  for  was  to  get  this  business  put  over  to  the  next  court,  not  to  come  here  and  lie  and 
juggle  about  it."  The  time  was  given,  and  Allen  paid  the  note. 

6* 


130  JOSEPH   GREEN. 


Franklin's  successor,  by  the  choice  of  the  people.  The  Whigs  went  still  further. 
Franklin  was  declared  to  be  an  enemy  of  his  country,  and  was  sent,  *a  prisoner, 
to  East  Windsor,  Connecticut.  He  was  kept  under  the  eye  of  Governor  Trum- 
bull,  until  1778,  when  he  was  exchanged,  released,  and  took  refuge  with  the 
British  army  in  New  York.  There  he  was  secretly  active  in  fomenting  discon- 
tents among  the  people,  wherever  he  could  make  an  impression.  He  was  pres- 
ident of  the  Board  of  Loyalists,  who  had  their  head-quarters  near  Oyster  Bay, 
Long  Island,  but  went  to  England  before  the  close  of  the  contest.  In  the  picture 
of  the  Reception  of  the  American  Loyalists  by  Great  Britain,  in  1783,  painted  by 
Benjamin  West,  Governor  Franklin  appears  at  the  head  of  a  group  of  figures. 
After  an  estrangement  of  ten  years,  he  solicited  and  obtained  a  reconciliation 
with  his  father.  Although  Dr.  Franklin  accepted  the  olive  branch  thus  filially 
held  out,  and  proposed  "  mutually  to  forget "  the  past,  he  seems  to  have  re- 
membered the  estrangement,  when  he  made  his  will,  for,  after  making  a  com- 
paratively small  bequest  to  William,  he  remarks,  "The  part  he  acted  against  me 
in  the  late  war,  which  is  of  public  notoriety,  will  account  for  my  leaving  him 
no  more  of  an  estate  he  endeavored  to  deprive  me  of."  Governor  Franklin 
continued  in  England  until  his  death,  and  enjoyed  a  pension,  from  the  British 
government,  of  four  thousand  dollars  a  year.  He  died  in  November,  1813,  at 
the  age  of  about  eighty-two  years.  His  wife  died  of  grief,  while  he  was  a  pris- 
oner, in  1778,  and  a  monumental  tablet  was  erected  to  her  memory  in  St.  Paul's 
church,  New  York  city. 


JOSEPH    GREEN. 

IN  the  same  year  when  Dr.  Franklin  first  saw  the  light,  a  genuine  wit  and  poet 
was  born  in  the  same  city  of  Boston.  His  name  was  Joseph  Green.  He 
was  first  instructed  in  the  South  Grammar  School,  and  then  entered  Harvard 
College,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1726.  He  became  an  accomplished  scholar, 
and  man  of  business ;  and  by  successful  mercantile  life,  for  a  few  years,  he  ac- 
quired a  competent  fortune.  Generous,  polite,  elegant  in  deportment,  and  ex- 
ceedingly popular  with  all  classes,  Mr.  Green  might  have  acquired  almost  any 
mark  of  public  distinction,  but  he  loved  private  life,  and  could  never  be  prevailed 
upon  to  accept  office.  He  took  very  little  part  in  politics,  yet  when  Hutchinson 
left  the  government  of  Massachusetts,  he  was  one  of  those  who  signed  a  com- 
plimentary address  to  that  functionary.  This  act  offended  the  republicans,  and 
the  royal  party  claimed  him;  but  when,  in  1774,  Massachusetts  was  deprived 
of  her  charter,  and  a  number  of  counsellors  were  appointed  by  mandamus,  Green 
refused  to  serve,  and  sent  his  resignation  to  General  Gage.  Yet  the  tendencies 
of  Mr.  Green  were  so  decidedly  loyal,  that  he  was  included  in  the  act  of  banish- 
ment, of  1778.  He  had  been  absent  from  Boston  about  three  years  already,  and 
he  never  returned  to  his  native  country.  He  died  in  London,  on  the  llth  of 
December,  1780,  at  the  age  of  seventy-four  years.  Mr.  Green's  poetry  was 
generally  humorous.  He  wrote  a  burlesque  on  a  psalm  written  by  his  fellow 
wit,  Doctor  Byles.  Also  a  burlesque  on  the  Free  Masons,  and  a  "  Lamentation 
on  Mr.  Old  Tenor  "  (paper  money),  which  gained  him  great  applause.  He  was 
a  member  of  a  club  of  sentimentalists,  who  published  several  pamphlets;  and  he 
attacked  the  administration  of  Governor  Belcher,  exposed  its  anti-republican 
tendencies,  and  ridiculed  the  chief  magistrate  by  putting  his  speeches  into  rhyme. 
Mr.  Green  was  a  Loyalist  of  the  milder  stamp,  and  was  governed  by  a  pure 
heart  and  clear  head  in  his  choice  of  government. 


JAMES  JACKSON. 


131 


JAMES    JACKSON. 

TI7HEN  the  British  army  was  about  to  leave  Savannah,  in  July,  1782,  General 
T  T  Wayne,  then  in  command  in  Georgia,  chose  an  accomplished  young  man 
of  twenty-five,  whose  valor  was  the  theme  for  praise  in  the  Southern  army,  to 
receive  the  keys  of  the  city  from  a  committee  of  British  officers.  That  young 
officer  was  Major  James  Jackson,  a  native  of  Devonshire,  England,  where  he 
was  born  on  the  21st  of  September.  1757.  He  came  to  America,  with  his  father, 
in  1772,  and  studied  law  in  Savannah.  He  loved  his  adopted  country,  and  in 
1776,  shouldered  his  musket,  and  was  active  in  repelling  an  invading  force  that 
menaced  Savannah.  In  1778,  he  was  appointed  brigade  major  of  the  Georgia 
militia,  and  was  wounded  in  a  skirmish  on  the  Ogeechee,  in  which  General 
Scriven  was  killed.  At  the  close  of  that  year  he  participated  in  the  unsuccess- 
ful defence  of  Savannah ;  and  when  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  Colonel  Campbell, 
he  was  among  those  who  fled  into  South  Carolina  and  joined  Moultrie's  brig- 
ade. His  appearance  was  so  wretched  and  suspicious,  during  that  flight,  that 
he  was  arrested  by  some  Whigs,  and  tried  and  condemned  as  a  spy.  They  were 
about  to  hang  him,  when  a  gentleman  of  reputation,  from  Georgia,  recognized 
him,  and  saved  his  life.  He  was  active  in  the  siege  of  Savannah  by  Lincoln 
and  D'Estaing,  in  October,  1779,  and  in  1780,  he  was  in  the  battle  at  Black- 


132  ELI   WHITNEY. 


stocks  under  Colonel  Elijah  Clarke,  of  Georgia.  General  Andrew  Pickens  made 
him  his  brigade  major,  in  1781,  and  his  fluent  speech  expressing  his  ardent 
patriotism,  infused  new  zeal  into  that  corps.  He  was  at  the  siege  of  Augusta, 
in  June,  1781,  and  when  the  Americans  took  possession,  Jackson  was  left  in 
command  of  the  garrison.  Subsequently  he  performed  more  active  and  arduous 
services,  as  commander  of  a  legionary  corps ;  and  at  Ebenezer,  on  the  Savannah, 
he  joined*General  Wayne,  and  was  the  right  arm  of  his  force  until  the  evacua- 
tion of  the  Georgia  capital,  in  1782.  As  some  reward  for  his  patriotic  services 
during  the  war,  the  legislature  gave  him  a  house  and  lot  in  Savannah.  Ho 
married  in  1785,  and  the  next  year  was  commissioned  brigadier-general  of  the 
State  militia.  In  1788,  he  was  elected  governor  of  Georgia,  but  modestly  de- 
clined the  honor  on  account  of  his  youth  and  inexperience,  being  then  only  little 
more  than  thirty  years  of  age.  He  was  one  of  the  first  representatives  of  Georgia 
in  Congress,  after  the  organization  of  the  Federal  Government;  and  from  1792 
to  1795,  was  a  member  of  the  United  States  Senate.  In  the  meanwhile  he  was 
promoted  to  major-general,  and  never  failed  in  the  faithful  performance  of  his 
duties,  civil  and  military.  The  State  Constitution  of  Georgia,  framed  in  1798, 
was  chiefly  the  work  of  his  brain  and  hand.  From  that  year  until  1801,  ho 
was  governor  of  the  State,  when  he  was  again  chosen  United  States'  senator. 
He  held  that  office  until  his  death,  which  occurred  at  Washington  city,  on  the 
19th  of  March,  1806,  at  the  age  of  forty-nine  years.  His  mortal  remains  lie 
beneath  a  neat  monument  in  the  Congressional  burial-ground,  upon  which  is  an 
inscription,  written  by  his  personal  friend  and  admirer,  John  Randolph,  of 
Roanoke.  Governor  Jackson  made  many  powerful  enemies  in  the  South,  be- 
cause of  his  successful  exposures  of  stupendous  land  frauds,  but  his  course  in- 
creased the  zeal  and  number  of  his  friends.  There  never  lived  a  truer  patriot  or 
more  honest  man,  than  General  James  Jackson. 


ELI    WHITNEY. 

EYERT  labor-saving  machine  is  a  gain  to  humanity ;  and  every  inventor  of 
such  machine  is  a  public  benefactor.  High  on  the  list  of  such  worthies  is 
the  name  of  Eli  Whitney,  the  inventor  of  a  machine  for  cleaning  cotton  to  pre- 
pare it  for  the  bale,  known  by  the  technical  term  of  gin.  He  was  born  at  West- 
borough,  Massachusetts,  on  the  8th  of  December,  1763.  His  mechanical  genius 
was  early  manifested ;  and  while  yet  a  mere  child,  he  constructed  many  things 
with  great  skill.  He  entered  Yale  College  in  1789,  and  was  graduated  in  1792. 
He  then  engaged  to  go  to  Georgia  as  a  private  tutor  in  a  family,  and  on  his  way, 
he  fell  in  with  the  widow  of  General  Greene,  who  was  returning  to  Savannah, 
with  her  family.  On  his  arrival,  he  found  himself  without  occupation  and  with 
very  little  money,  for  the  person  with  whom  he  had  made  an  engagement  had 
hired  another  preceptor.  Mrs.  Greene  had  become  much  interested  in  young 
Whitney,  and  at  once  invited  him  to  make  her  house  his  home,  to  pursue  what 
studies  he  pleased.  He  commenced  the  study  of  law,  but  his  mind  was  much 
on  mechanics.  Several  distinguished  visitors  at  the  house  of  Mrs.  Greene,  from 
the  interior,  on  one  occasion,  expressed  their  regret  that  there  was  not  some 
machine  for  cleaning  the  green  seed  cotton,1  as  its  culture,  with  such  aid,  would 


1.  This  labor  was  then  performed  chiefly  by  female  servants.    To  separate  one  pound  of  clean  staple 
cotton  from  the  seeds  was  considered  a  good  day's  work  for  one  person. 


ELIAS   BOUDINOT.  133 


be  very  profitable  at  the  South.  The  great  mechanical  genius  of  young  "Whitney 
was  known  to  Mrs.  Greene,  and  she  said,  "  Apply  to  my  young  friend  here,  he 
can  make  anything."  Although  he  had  never  yet  looked  upon  a  cotton  seed, 
his  mind  began  to  plan.  He  procured  a  small  quantity  of  uncleaned  cotton,  and 
with  such  rude  tools  as  a  plantation  afforded,  he  went  to  work  and  constructed 
a  machine,  under  the  kind  auspices  of  Mrs.  Greene  and  Phineas  Miller,  who  be- 
came her  husband.  The  machine  was  examined  with  delight,  for  it  would  do 
the  work  of  months  in  a  single  day.  With  it,  one  man  could  do  the  work  of  a 
thousand.  It  opened  a  way  to  immense  wealth  to  the  Southern  planters.  Great 
excitement  prevailed ;  and  when  the  people  found  that  they  could  not  see  the 
great  invention  until  it  was  patented,  they  broke  open  the  building  in  which  it 
stood,  carried  it  away,  and  soon  many  similar  machines  were  in  use.  Whitney 
went  to  his  native  State,  patented  his  invention,  and  in  partnership  with  Mr. 
Miller,  commenced  the  manufacture  of  machines  for  Georgia.  Before  he  could 
secure  a  patent,  it  was  in  common  use;1  and  to  complete  his  misfortunes,  his 
shop  with  all  its  contents,  and  his  papers,  were  consumed.  He  was  made  a 
bankrupt ;  and  the  inventor  of  the  cotton  gin,  which  has  been  worth  hundreds 
of  millions  of  dollars  to  the  people  of  the  South,  never  received  a  sufficient  amount 
of  money  from  it,  to  reimburse  his  actual  outlays  and  losses.  He  was  treated 
with  the  utmost  unfairness  by  some  southern  legislatures,  as  well  as  by  individ- 
uals ;  and  everywhere  among  those  who  were  profiting  immensely  by  the  in- 
vention, his  rights  were  denied.  Even  Congress  denied  his  application  to  extend 
his  patent.  Disappointed,  and  disgusted  with  the  injustice  of  his  fellow-men, 
Mr.  Whitney  turned  his  attention  to  other  pursuits.  He  commenced  the  manu- 
facture of  fire-arms,  in  1798,  for  the  United  States.  But  misfortune  seemed  to 
be  uniformly  his  lot  in  life,  except  in  his  choice  of  the  excellent  Henrietta, 
daughter  of  Pierpont  Edwards,  for  his  wife.  After  great  sufferings  from  disease, 
he  died  near  New  Haven,  on  the  8th  of  January,  1825,  at  the  age  of  fifty-nine 
years. 


ELIAS    BOUDINOT. 

THE  American  Bible  Society,  whose  labors  have  accomplished  a  vast  amount 
of  good,  in  the  dissemination  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  was  established  in 
1816 ;  and  Elias  Boudinot,  one  of  its  founders,  and  a  warm  patriot  of  the  Revo- 
lution, was  its  first  president.  He  was  born  in  Philadelphia,  on  the  2d  of  May, 
1740.  He  inherited  a  love  of  freedom  and  religious  devotion  from  his  Huguenot 
ancestors,  and  when  the  colonists  began  to  question  the  right  of  Great  Britain 
to  tax  them  without  their  consent,  he  took  a  stand  for  his  countrymen.  He  had 
received  a  classical  education,  studied  law  with  Eichard  Stockton,  one  of  the 
signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  married  that  patriot's  sister. 
Boudinot  practiced  his  profession  in  New  Jersey,  and  soon  rose  to  distinction. 
In  1777,  he  was  appointed  commissary-general  of  prisoners,  by  Congress,  and 
the  same  year  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Continental  Congress.  In  Novem- 
ber, 1782,  he  was  elected  president  of  that  body,  and  in  that  capacity  he  signed 
the  preliminary  treaty  of  peace  with  Great  Britain.  At  the  close  of  the  war  he 
resumed  the  profession  of  the  law,  but  was  again  called  into  public  life  in  1789, 

1.  On  one  occasion,  when  suits  for  the  infringement  of  the  patent  in  Georgia  were  commenced,  Fr. 
Miller  wrote,  "  The  jurymen  at  Augusta  have  come  to  an  understanding  among  themselves,  that  they 
will  never  give  a  cause  in  our  favor,  let  the  merits  of  the  case  be  as  they  may." 


134  JOSEPH  HABERSHAM. 

by  an  election  to  a  seat  in  Congress,  under  the  Federal  Constitution.  He  was 
a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  six  years,  when  Washington  appointed 
him  Director  of  the  Mint,  on  the  death  of  Rittenhouse.  He  held  that  position 
until  1805,  when  he  retired  from  public  life,  and  made  his  residence  the  re- 
mainder of  his  days,  at  Burlington,  New  Jersey.  In  1812,  he  was  elected  a 
member  of  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions,  to  which 
he  made  a  donation  of  five  thousand  dollars ;  and  when  he  was  elected  president 
of  the  American  Bible  Society,  in  1816,  he  gave  that  institution  ten  thousand 
dollars.  He  was  a  trustee  of  the  College  at  Princeton  for  many  years,  and  there 
founded  a  cabinet  of  natural  history,  at  a  cost  of  three  thousand  dollars.  His 
whole  life  was  one  of  usefulness ;  and  at  his  death,  he  bequeathed  a  great  por- 
tion of  a  large  fortune  to  institutions  and  trustees,  for  charitable  purposes.  The 
remainder  of  his  estate  he  left  to  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  of  which  he  was  a  member.  He  died  at  Burlington,  on  the  24th  of 
October,  1821,  at  the  age  of  eighty-one  years. 


JOSEPH    HABERSHAM. 

riEORGIA  may  boast  of  many  noble  patriots,  but  she  had  none,  in  the  "War 
\JT  for  Independence,  of  truer  stamp,  than  Joseph  Habersham,  the  son  of  a 
merchant  of  Savannah,  where  he  was  born  in  1750.  He  was  one  of  the  earliest 
advocates  of  popular  rights  in  the  Georgia  capital,  and,  with  other  young  men, 
acted,  as  well  as  spoke,  against  unjust  royal  rule.  Early  in  the  Summer  of  1775, 
a  letter  from  Sir  James  "Wright,  the  royal  governor  of  Georgia,  to  General  Gage, 
was  intercepted  by  the  vigilant  Whigs  of  Charleston,  who  had  seized  the  mails. 
It  contained  a  request  for  that  officer  to  send  some  troops  to  Savannah,  to  sup- 
press the  rising  rebellion  there.  The  letter  was  sent  to  the  committee  of  safety 
at  Savannah,  and  aroused  the  fiercest  indignation  of  the  Whigs.  At  about  that 
time,  a  British  vessel  arrived  at  the  mouth  of  the  Savannah,  with  many  thousand 
pounds  of  powder.  It  was  determined  to  seize  the  vessel  and  secure  the  powder, 
for  the  use  of  the  patriots.  On  the  night  of  the  10th  of  July,  thirty  volunteers 
under  young  Habersham  (then  holding  the  commission  of  colonel)  and  Commo- 
dore Bowen,  captured  the  vessel,  placed  the  powder,  under  guard,  in  the  mag- 
azine at  Savannah,  and  sent  five  thousand  pounds  of  the  ammunition,  to  General 
Washington  at  Boston.  In  January,  1776,  Colonel  Habersham  was  a  member 
of  the  Georgia  Assembly;  and  on  the  18th  of  that  month,  he  led  a  party  of 
volunteers,  to  the  capture  of  Governor  Wright.  They  paroled  him  a  prisoner  in 
his  own  house,  from  which,  on  a  stormy  night  in  February,  he  escaped,  made 
his  way  to  the  British  ship,  Scarborough,  and  went  to  England.  Thus  Colonel 
Habersham  put  an  end  to  royal  rule,  in  Georgia.  He  was  active  in  the  council 
and  field,  during  the  whole  war,  and  held  the  commission  of  lieutenant-colonel 
in  the  Continental  army.  In  1785,  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  Congress,  to 
represent  the  Savannah  district;  and  in  1795,  President  Washington  appointed 
him  Postmaster-general  of  the  United  States.  He  resigned  that  office  in  the 
year  1800,  and  two  years  afterward,  was  made  president  of  the  Branch  Bank  of 
the  United  States,  at  Savannah.  He  filled  that  office  with  distinguished  ability 
until  a  short  time  before  his  death,  which  occurred  in  November,  1815,  at  the 
age  of  sixty-five  years. 


BENEDICT  AKNOLD. 


135 


BENEDICT    ARNOLD. 

"  ~W7"E  accept  the  treason,  but  despise  the  traitor,"  was  the  practical  expression 
I V  of  British  sentiment  when  Arnold,  one  of  the  bravest  of  the  American 
generals,  was  purchased  with  British  gold,  and  attempted  to  betray  the  liberties 
of  his  country.  He  was  a  native  of  Norwich,  Connecticut,  where  he  was  born 
on  the  3d  of  January,  1740.  He  was  a  descendant  of  Benedict  Arnold,  one  of 
the  early  governors  of  Rhode  Island,  and  was  blessed  with  a  mother  who,  ac- 
cording to  her  epitaph,  was  "  A  pattern  of  patience,  piety,  and  virtue."  But  he 
was  a  wayward,  disobedient,  and  unscrupulous  boy;  cruel  in  his  tastes  and 
wicked  in  his  practices.1  He  was  bred  to  the  business  of  an  apothecary,  at 
Norwich,  under  the  brothers  Lathrop,  who  were  so  pleased  with  him  as  a  young 
man  of  genius,  that  they  gave  him  two  thousand  dollars  to  commence  business 
with.  From  1763  to  1767,  he  combined  the  business  of  bookseller  and  druggist, 
in  New  Haven,  when  he  commenced  trading  voyages  to  the  West  Indies,  and 

1.  While  yet  a  mere  youth,  he  attempted  murder.  A  young  Frenchman  was  an  accepted  suitor  of 
Arnold's  sister.  The  young  tyrant  (for  Arnold  was  always  a  despot  among  his  play-fellows)  disliked 
him,  and  when  he  could  not  persuade  hislisler  to  discard  him,  he  declared  he  would  shoot  the  French- 
man if  he  ever  entered  the  house  again.  The  opportunity  soon  occurred,  and  Arnold  discharged  a 
loaded  pistol  at  him,  as  he  escaped  through  a  window.  The  young  man  left  the  place  forever,  and 
Hannah  Arnold  lived  the  life  of  a  maiden.  Arnold  and  the  Frenchman  afterward  met  at  Honduras,  and 
fought  a  duel.  The  Frenchman  was  severely  wounded. 


136  BENEDICT   ARNOLD. 

horse  dealing  in  Canada.  He  was  hi  command  of  a  volunteer  company,  in  New 
Haven,  when  the  war  broke  out,  with  whom  he  marched  to  Cambridge,  and 
joined  the  army  under  Washington.  Then  commenced  his  career  as  the  bravest 
of  the  brave.  His  first  bold  exploit  had  been  in  connection  with  Ethan  Allen 
in  the  capture  of  Ticonderoga,  in  May,  1775.  In  September  folio  wing  he  started 
from  Cambridge  for  Quebec,  by  way  of  the  Kennebeck  and  the  wilderness  be- 
yond its  head  waters,  in  command  of  an  expedition ;  and  after  an  unsuccessful 
attempt  to  take  the  capital  of  Canada,  he  joined  Montgomery,  and  participated 
in  the  disastrous  siege  of  that  walled  town  on  the  last  day  of  the  year.  There 
he  was  severely  wounded  in  the  leg,  but  escaping  up  the  St.  Lawrence,  held 
command  of  the  broken  army  until  the  arrival  of  General  Wooster  in  April  fol- 
lowing. Arnold  retired  to  Montreal,  then  to  St.  Johns,  and  left  Canada  alto- 
gether, in  June,  1776.  During  the  Summer  and  Autumn  of  that  year,  he  was 
active  in  naval  command  on  Lake  Champlain.  He  assisted  in  repelling  the  in- 
vasion of  Connecticut,  by  Try  on,  in  April,  1777;  and  during  the  latter  part  of 
that  Summer,  he  was  with  General  Schuyler,  in  his  preparatipns  for  opposing  the 
attempt  of  Burgoyne  to  penetrate  beyond  Fort  Edward,  or  Saratoga. 

"While  the  American  army  was  encamped  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mohawk,  Arnold 
marched  up  that  stream,  and  relieved  the  beleagured  garrison  of  Eort  Schuyler 
(or  Stanwix),  on  the  site  of  the  present  village  of  Rome.1  He  was  in  the  battles 
at  Stillwater;  and  despite  the  jealous  efforts  of  Gates  to  cripple  his  movements, 
his  intrepidity  and  personal  example  were  chiefly  instrumental  in  securing  the 
victory  over  Burgoyne,  for  which  the  commanding  general  received  the  thanks 
of  Congress  and  a  gold  medal,  while  Arnold  was  not  even  mentioned  in  the 
official  despatches  from  Saratoga.  This  was  one  of  the  first  affronts  that  planted 
seeds  of  treason  in  his  mind.  He  was  again  severely  wounded  at  Saratoga,  and 
suffered  much  for  many  months.  "When,  in  the  Spring  of  1778,  the  British 
evacuated  Philadelphia,  Arnold  was  appointed  military  governor  there,  because 
of  his  incapacity  for  active  field  service,  on  account  of  his  wounds.  There  he 
lived  extravagantly,  married  the  beautiful  daughter  of  Edward  Shippen,  a  lead- 
ing Tory  of  Philadelphia,  and  commenced  a  system,  of  fraud,  peculation,  and 
oppression,  which  caused  him  to  be  tried  for  sundry  offences  by  a  court-martial, 
ordered  by  Congress.  He  was  found  guilty  on  some  of  the  charges,  and  deli- 
cately reprimanded  by  "Washington.  Indignant  and  deeply  in  debt,  he  brooded 
upon  revenge  on  one  hand,  and  pecuniary  relief  on  the  other.  He  opened  a 
correspondence  with  the  accomplished  Major  Andre,  adjutant-general  of  the 
British  army,  and  after  procuring  the  command  of  the  fortresses  at  "West  Point, 
on  the  Hudson,  and  vicinity,  he  arranged,  with  Andre,  a  plan  for  betraying  them 
into  the  hands  of  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  the  British  commander  at  New  York.  His 
price  for  his  perfidy  was  fifty  thousand  dollars  and  a  brigadier's  commission  in 
the  British  army.  After  a  personal  negotiation  with  Arnold,  Andre  was 
captured,2  the  treason  became  known,  but  the  traitor  had  fled  to  his  new  friends 
in  New  York.  He  soon  afterward  went  on  a  marauding  expedition  into  Vir- 
ginia,3 and  then  on  the  New  England  coast,  near  his  birth-place,  everywhere 
exhibiting  the  most  cruel  spite  toward  the  Americans  whom  he  had  sought  to 
injure  beyond  measure.  The  war  ended,  and  he  went  to  England.  There  ho 

1.  While  Burgoyne  penetrated  the  State  from  the  North,  St.  Leger,  with  Tories  and  Indians,  attempted 
to  take  Fort  Schuyler,  and  then  sweep  the  Mohawk  Valley. 

2.  Andre  was  hanged  as  a  spy,  at  Tappan,  on  the  west  side  of  the  Hudson,  in  Octoher,  1780.     He  had 
been  drawn  into  that  position  by  the  villany  of  Arnold,  and  could  the  traitor  have  been  caught,  Andre 
would  have  been  saved. 

3.  In  a  skirmish  between  Richmond  and  Petersburg,  some  Americans  were  made  prisoners.     One  of 
them  was  asked  by  Arnold,  what  his  countrymen  would  do  with  him,  if  they  should  catch  him.  _  The 
young  man  promptly  replied,  "  Bury  the  leg  that  was  wounded  at  Quebec  and  Saratoga,  with  military 
honors,  and  hang  the  rest  of  yon."    Great  efforts  were  marie  to  capture  the  traitor,  while  he  was  in 
Virginia.    That  was  the  chief  object  of  La  Fayette's  expedition  to  that  State. 


WILLIAM   BARTON.  137 


was  everywhere  shunned  as  a  serpent,  and  he  made  his  abode  in  St.  Johns,  New 
Brunswick,  from  1786  until  1793.  He  went  to  the  West  Indies,  in  1794,  and 
from  thence  to  England.  He  died  in  Gloucester  Place,  London,  on  the  14th  of 
June,  1801,  at  the  age  of  sixty-one  years.  Just  three  years  afterward,  his  wife 
died  at  the  same  place,  aged  forty-three.1 


WILLIAM    BARTON. 

"  What  hath  the  gray -haired  prisoner  done? 

Hath  murder  stained  his  hand  with  go.e? 
Ah,  no  !  his  crime  's  a  fouler  one — 
God  made  the  old  man  poor  1" 

THUS  indignantly  did  the  gifted  pen  of  "VVhittier  refer  to  the  brave  Colonel 
Barton,  in  his  noble  protest  against  imprisonment  for  debt.  Barton  was  a 
worthy  scion  of  old  llhode  Island  stock,  and  was  born  in  Providence  in  1750. 
Of  his  early  life  we  know  nothing,  but  when  the  War  for  Independence  appealed 
to  the  patriotism  and  romance  of  the  young  men  of  America,  we  find  him  among 
the  most  daring  of  those  who  gave  the  British  great  annoj^ance  after  they  had 
taken  possession  of  Rhode  Island,  in  17 7G,  and  were  encamped  at  Newport  and 
vicinity.  Young  Barton  had  passed  through  the  several  grades  of  office,  until 
the  opening  of  1777,  when  we  find  him  holding  the  commission  of  lieutenant- 
colonel  of  militia,  and  performing  good  service  in  preparations  for  driving  the 
British  from  Rhode  Island.  General  Prescott,  an  arrogant,  tyrannical  man,  was 
the  commander- in-chief  of  the  enemy  there,  and  the  people  suffered  much  at  his 
hands.'2  They  devised  various  schemes  to  get  rid  of  him,  but  all  failed  until  a 
plan,  conceived  by  Colonel  Barton,  was  successfully  carried  out.  Prescott's 
head-quarters  were  at  the  house  of  a  Quaker,  five  miles  north  of  Newport.  On 
a  sultry  night  in  July,  1777,  Barton,  with  a  few  trusty  followers,  crossed  Nar- 
raganset  Bay  from  Warwick  Point,  in  whale  boats,  directly  through  a  British 
fleet,  and  landed  in  a  sheltered  cove  a  short  distance  from  Prescott's  quarters. 
They  proceeded  stealthily  in  two  divisions,  and  secured  the  sentinel  and  the 
outside  doors  of  the  house.  Then  Barton  boldly  entered,  with  four  strong  men 
and  a  negro,  and  proceeded  to  Prescott's  room  on  the  second  floor.  It  was  now 
about  midnight.  The  door  was  locked  on  the  inside.  There  was  no  time  for 
parley.  The  negro,  stepping  back  a  few  paces,  used  his  head  as  a  battering- 
ram,  and  the  door  flew  open.  Prescott,  supposing  the  intruders  to  be  robbers, 
sprang  from  his  bed  and  seized  his  gold  watch.  The  next  moment  Barton's 
hand  was  laid  on  his  shoulder,  and  he  was  admonished  that  he  was  a  prisoner, 
and  must  be  silent.  Without  giving  him  time  to  dress,  he  was  conveyed  to  one 
of  the  whale-boats,  and  the  whole  party  returned  to  Warwick  Point,  undis- 
covered by  the  sentinels  of  the  fleet.  Prescott's  mouth  was  kept  shut  by  a  pis- 
tol at  each  ear.  The  prisoner  first  spoke  after  landing,  and  said,  irSir,  you  have 
made  a  bold  push  to-night."  Barton  coolly  replied,  "We  have  been  fortunate." 
At  sunrise  the  captive  was  in  Providence,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  days  he 
was  sent  to  the  head-quarters  of  Washington,  in  New  Jersey.3  For  this  brave 

1.  Their  son,  James  Robertson  Arnold,  born  at  West  Point,  became  a  distinguished  officer  in  the 
British  army.     He  passed  through  all  the  grades  of  office,  from  lieutenant.     Oil  the  accession  of  Queen 
Victoria,  he  was  made  one  of  her  aids-de-camp,  and  rose  to  the  rank  of  major-general,  with  the  badge 
of  a  Knight  of  the  Royal  Hanoverian  Guelphic  Order. 

2.  This  was  the  same  Prescott  who  commanded  at  Montreal,  in  1775,  and  treated  Colonel  Ethan  Allen 
so  cruelly  when  he  was  made  prisoner. 

3.  Prescott's  haughty  demeanor  was  not  laid  aside  in  his  captivity.    On  his  way  to  New  Jersey,  he 


138  GEORGE  ROGERS  CLARKE. 

service,  Congress  presented  their  thanks  and  an  elegant  sword,  to  lieutenant- 
colonel  Barton,  and  in  December  following,  he  was  promoted  to  the  rank  and 
pay  of  colonel  in  the  Continental  army.  He  was  also  rewarded  by  a  grant  of 
land,  in  Vermont.  In  the  action  at  Butt's  Hill,  near  Bristol  Ferry,  in  August, 
1778,  Colonel  Barton  was  so  badly  wounded,  that  he  was  disabled  for  the  re- 
mainder of  the  war.  In  after  years,  the  land  in  Vermont  proved  to  be  an  un- 
fortunate gift.  By  the  transfer  of  some  of  it  he  became  entangled  in  the  meshes 
of  the  law,  and  was  imprisoned  for  debt,  in  Vermont,  for  many  years,  in  his  old 
age. 

"  For  this  he  shares  a  felon's  cell,'1 
The  fittest  earthly  type  of  hell  ! 
For  this,  the  boon  for  which  he  poured 
His  young  blood  on  the  invadei's  sword, 
And  counted  light  the  fearful  cost — 
His  blood-gained  liberty  is  lost." 

"When  La  Fayette  was  "our  nation's  guest,"  in  1825,  he  heard  of  the  situation 
of  his  old  companion-in-arms,  paid  the  debt  and  set  him  at  liberty !  It  was  a 
significant  rebuke,  not  only  to  the  Shylock  who  demanded  the  "pound  of  flesh," 
but  to  the  American  people.  Colonel  Barton  died  at  Providence,  in  1831,  at  the 
age  of  eighty-four  years. 


GEORGE    ROGERS    CLARKE. 

ONE  of  the  most  interesting  episodes  in  the  history  of  our  country,  is  that 
which  relates  to  the  conquest  of  the  region  long  known  as  the  North- 
western Territory,1  from  the  motley  masters  of  the  soil — English,  French,  and 
Indians.  The  chief  actor  in  those  events,  was  George  Rogers  Clarke,  a  hardy 
Virginia  borderer,  whose  youth  was  spent  in  those  physical  pursuits  which  give 
vigor  to  the  frame  and  activity  to  the  mind.  He  was  born  in  Albemarle  county, 
Virginia,  on  the  19th  of  November,  1752,  and  first  appeared  in  history  as  an 
adventurer  beyond  the  Alleghanies.  in  1772.  He  had  been  engaged  in  the 
business  of  land-surveyor,  for  some  time  and  that  year  he  went  down  the  Ohio, 
in  a  canoe,  as  far  as  the  mouth  of  the  Great  Kanawha,  in  company  with  Rev. 
David  Jones,  then  on  his  way  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  western  tribes.*  He 
was  captain  of  a  company  in  Dunmore's  army,  which  marched  against  the  In- 
dians on  the  Ohio  and  its  tributaries,  in  1774.3  Ever  since  his  trip  in  1772,  he 
ardently  desired  an  opportunity  to  explore  those  deep  wildernesses  in  the  great 
vallies;  and  in  1775,  he  accompanied  some  armed  settlers  to  Kentucky,  as  their 
commander.  During  that  and  the  following  year,  he  traversed  a  great  extent 
of  country  south  of  the  Ohio,  studied  the  character  of  the  Indians,  and  made 
himself  master  of  many  secrets  which  aided  in  his  future  success.  He  beheld  a 
beautiful  country,  inviting-  immigration,  but  the  pathway  to  it  was  made  dan- 

and  his  escort  dined  at  the  tavern  of  Captain  Alden,  at  Lebanon,  Connecticut.  The  common  dish  of 
corn  and  beans  was  set  before  him.  He  supposed  the  act  to  be  an  intentional  insult,  and  strewing  the 
succotash  on  the  floor,  exclaimed,  "  Do  you  treat  me  with  the  food  of  hogs."  Captain  Alden  hated  the 
tyrant,  and  for  this  act  he  horsewhipped  him.  After  Prescott  was  exchanged  for  General  Charles  Lee, 
and  was  again  in  command  on  Rhode  Island,  he  treated  a  gentleman,  who  called  upon  him  on  business, 
with  much  discourtesy.  He  said  in  excuse,  "  He  looked  so  much  like  a  cursed  Connecticut  man  that 
horsewhipped  me,  that  I  could  not  endure  his  presence." 

1.  It  embraced  the  present  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  and  Wisconsin. 

2.  See  sketch  of  David  Jones. 

3.  The  Shawnees  and  other  tribes  had  committed  many  depredations  on  the  Virginia  frontier  for 
several  years,  and  in  1774,  Lord  Dnnmore,  then  governor  of' that  province,  led  quite  a  large  force  against 
them.     A  severe  battle  was  fought  at  Point  Pleasant,  at  the  mouth  of  the  great  Kanawha  ;  and  at  Chil- 
licothe,  Dunmore  made  a  treaty  of  peace  and  friendship  with  them. 


GEORGE  ROGERS  CLARKE. 


139 


gerous  by  the  enemies  of  the  colonists,  who  sallied  forth  from  the  British  posts 
at  Detroit,  Kaskaskia,  and  Vincennes,  with  Indian  allies.  Convinced  of  the 
necessity  of  possessing  these  posts,  Clarke  submitted  the  plan  of  an  expedition 
against  them,  to  the  Virginia  legislature,  and  early  in  the  Spring  of  1178,  he  was 
at  the  Falls  of  the  Ohio  (now  Louisville),  with  four  companies  of  soldiers.  There 
he  was  joined  by  Simon  Kenton,  another  bold  pioneer.  He  marched  through 
the  wilderness  toward  those  important  posts,  and  at  the  close  of  Summer  all  but 
Detroit  were  in  his  possession. 

Clarke  was  now  promoted  to  colonel,  and  was  instructed  to  pacify  the  western 
tribes,  if  possible,  and  bring  them  into  friendly  relations  with  the  Americans. 
While  thus  engaged,  he  was  informed  of  the  re-capture  of  Vincennes.  "With  his 
usual  energy,  and  followed  by  less  than  two  hundred  men,  he  traversed  the 
drowned  lands  of  Illinois,  through  deep  morasses  and  snow-floods,  in  February, 
1779;  and  on  the  19th  of  that  month,  'appeared  before  Vincennes.  To  the 
astonished  garrison,  it  seemed  as  if  those  rough  Kentuckians  had  dropped  from 


140  DAVID  JONES. 


the  clouds,  for  the  whole  country  was  inundated.  The  fort  was  speedily  sur- 
rendered, and  commander  Hamilton  (governor  of~  Detroit),  and  several  others, 
were  sent  to  Virginia  as  prisoners.  Colonel  Clarke  also  captured  a  quantity  of 
goods,  under  convoy  from  Detroit,  valued  at  $50,000;  and  having  sufficiently 
garrisoned  Vincennes  and  the  other  posts,  he  proceeded  to  build  Fort  Jefferson, 
on  the  western  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  below  the  Ohio. 

When  Arnold  invaded  Virginia,  in  1781,  Colonel  Clarke  joined  the  forces 
under  the  Baron  Steuben,  and  performed  signal  service  until  the  traitor  had 
departed.  He  was  promoted  to  the  rank  of  brigadier,  the  same  year,  and  went 
beyond  the  mountains  again,  hoping  to  organize  an  expedition  against  Detroit. 
His  scheme  failed,  and,  for  awhile,  Clarke  was  in  command  of  a  post  at  the  Falls 
of  the  Ohio.  In  the  Autumn  of  1782,  he  penetrated  the  Indian  country  between 
the  Ohio  and  the  Lakes,  with  a  thousand  men,  and  chastised  the  tribes  severely 
for  their  marauding  excursions  into  Kentucky,  and  awed  them  into  comparatively 
peaceful  relations.  For  these  deeds,  John  Randolph  afterward  called  Clarke  the 
"American  Hannibal,  who,  by  the  reduction  of  those  military  posts  in  the  wil- 
derness, obtained  the  lakes  for  the  northern  boundary  of  our  Union,  at  the  peace 
in  1783."  Clarke  made  Kentucky  his  future  home;  and  during  Washington's 
administration,  when  Genet,  the  French  minister,  attempted  to  organize  a  force 
in  the  West,  against  the  Spaniards,  Clarke  accepted  from  him  the  commission  of 
major-general  in  the  armies  of  France.  The  project  was  abandoned,  and  the 
hero  of  the  north-west  never  appeared  in  public  life  afterward.  He  died  near 
Louisville,  Kentucky,  in  February,  1818,  at  the  age  of  sixty 'Six  years. 


DAVID    JONES. 

THE  ministers  of  the  "church  militant"  frequently  performed  double  service  in 
the  righteous  cause  of  truth,  during  the  War  for  Independence,  for  they 
had  both  spiritual  and  temporal  enemies  to  contend  with.  Among  these,  the 
Rev.  David  Jones  was  one  of  the  most  faithful  soldiers  in  both  kinds  of  warfare. 
He  was  born  in  New  Castle  county,  Delaware,  on  the  12th  of  May,  1736,  and, 
as  his  name  imports,  was  of  Welsh  descent.  He  was  educated  for  the  gospel 
ministry  under  the  Rev.  Isaac  Eaton,  at  Hopewell,  New  Jersey,  and  for  many 
years  was  pastor  of  the  Upper  (Baptist)  Freehold  church.  Impressed  with  a 
desire  to  carry  the  gospel  to  the  heathen  of  the  wilderness,  he  proceeded  to  visit 
the  Indians  in  the  Ohio  and  Illinois  country,  in  1772.  On  his  way  down  the 
Ohio  river,  he  was  accompanied  by  the  brave  George  Rogers  Clarke,  whose 
valor  gave  the  region,  afterward  known  as  the  North-western  Territory,  to  the 
struggling  colonists,  toward  the  close  of  the  Revolution.  Mr.  Jones'  mission 
was  unsuccessful,  and  he  returned  to  his  charge  at  Freehold.  Because  of  his 
zealous  espousal  of  the  republican  cause,  he  became  very  obnoxious  to  the 
Tories,  who  were  numerous  in  Monmouth  county.  Believing  his  life  to  be  in 
danger,  he  left  New  Jersey,  settled  in  Chester  county,  in  Pennsylvania,  and  in 
the  Spring  of  1775,  took  charge  of  the  Great  Valley  Baptist  church.  He  soon 
afterward  preached  a  sermon  before  Colonel  Davie's  regiment,  on  the  occasion 
of  a  Continental  Fast,  which  was  published,  and  produced  a  salutary  effect.  It 
was  entitled,  Defensive  War  in  a  Just  Cause,  Sinless.  In  1776,  Mr.  Jones 
was  appointed  chaplain  to  Colonel  St.  Glair's  regiment,  and  proceeded  with  it  to 
the  Northern  Department.  He  was  on  duty  at  Ticonderoga,  when  the  British 
approached,  after  the  defeat  of  Arnold  on  the  Lake  below,  and  there  preached  a 
characteristic  sermon  to  the  soldiers,  which  was  afterward  published.  He  served 


JOHN   EAGAR  HOWARD.  141 

through  two  campaigns  under  General  Gates,  and  was  chaplain  to  General 
Wayne's  brigade  in  the  Autumn  of  1777.  He  was  with  that  officer  at  the  Paoli 
Massacre,1  where  he  narrowly  escaped  death,  but  lived  to  make  an  address  at 
the  erection  of  a  monument  there,  over  the  remains  of  his  slaughtered  comrades, 
forty  years  afterward.  He  was  in  the  battles  at  Brandy  wine  and  Germantown, 
suffered  at  White  Marsh  and  Valley  Forge,  and  continued  with  Wayne  in  all 
his  varied  duties  from  the  battle  at  Monmouth  in  June,  1778,  until  the  surrender 
of  Cornwallis,  at  Yorktown,  in  October,  1781.  Such  was  his  activity  as  a  sol- 
dier, that  General  Howe  offered  a  reward  for  him,  while  the  British  held  pos- 
session of  Philadelphia ;  and  on  one  occasion,  a  detachment  of  soldiers  were  sent 
to  the  Great  Valley  to  capture  him.2  At  the  close  of  the  war,  he  returned  to 
his  farm,  and  resumed  his  ministerial  labors. 

When  General  Wayne  took  command  of  the  army  in  the  North-western  Ter- 
ritory, in  1794,  Mr.  Jones  was  appointed  his  chaplain,  and  accompanied  him  to 
the  field;  and  when,  again,  in  1812,  a  war  between  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain  commenced,  the  patriotic  chaplain  of  the  old  conflict  entered  the  army, 
and  served  under  Generals  Brown  and  Wilkinson,  until  the  close  of  the  contest. 
He  was  then  seventy-six  years  of  age.  When  peace  came,  he  again  put  on  the 
armor  of  the  gospel,  and  continued  his  warfare  with  the  enemy  of  souls  until 
the  last.  His  latest  public  act  was  the  delivery  of  the  dedicatory  address  on 
laying  the  corner-stone  of  the  Paoli  Monument,  in  1817.  On  the  5th  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1820,  this  distinguished  servant  of  God  and  of  the  Republic,  died  in  peace, 
in  the  eighty-fourth  year  of  his  age,  and  was  buried  in  the  Great  Valley  church- 
yard, in  sight  of  the  pleasant  little  village  of  Valley  Forge. 


JOHN    E  A  Q  A  R    H  O  W  A  R  D  . 

MARYLAND  may  boast  of  many  lovely  sons,  but  she  cherishes  the  memory 
of  none  more  warmly  than  that  of  John  Eagar  Howard.  He  was  born  in 
Baltimore  county,  on  the  4th  of  June,  1752.  He  was  a  very  young  man  when 
the  War  for  Independence  commenced,  and  entered  eagerly  into  the  plans  of  the 
republicans.  He  became  a  soldier  in  1776,  and  commanded  a  company  of  militia 
in  the  service  known  as  The  Flying  Camps,  under  General  Hugh  Mercer.  In 
that  capacity  he  served  at  White  Plains,  in  the  Autumn  of  that  year;  and  when, 
in  December,  1776,  that  corps  was  disbanded,  he  accepted  the  commission  of 
major  in  one  of  the  Continental  battalions  of  his  native  State.  Then  commenced 
his  useful  military  career.  In  the  Spring  of  1777,  he  joined  the  army  under 
Washington,  at  Middlebrook,  in  New  Jersey,  but  returned  Home  in  June,  on 
account  of  the  death  of  his  father.  He  again  joined  the  army,  a  few  days  after 
the  battle  on  the  Brandywine,  in  September ;  distinguished  himself  for  cool 
courage  in  the  engagement  at  Germantown ;  and  afterward  wrote  a  graphic 
account  of  the  whole  affair.  He  was  also  at  the  battle  on  the  plains  of  Mon- 
mouth the  following  year;  and  in  June,  1779,  he  was  commissioned  a  lieuten- 
ant-colonel in  the  5th  Maryland  regiment.  "  to  take  rank  from  the  1 1th  day  of 
May,  1778."  In  1780,  he  went  to  the  field  of  duty,  in  the  South,  when  De  Kalb 

1.  Near  the  Paoli  Tavern,  in  Chester  county,  Pennsylvania.  General  Wayne  was  surprised  a  few 
nights  after  the  battle  on  the  Brandywine,  by  General  Grey  of  the  British  army,  and  a  large  number  of 
his  command  were  slain.     That  event  is  known  in  history  as  the  Paoli  Massacre. 

2.  While  reconnoitring  alone  one  night,  Chaplain  Jones  saw  a  dragoon  dismount,  and  enter  a  house 
for  refreshments.     Mr.  Jones  boldly  approached,  seized  the  horseman's  pistols,  and  going  into  the  house, 
claimed  the  owner  as  his  prisoner.     The  unarmed  dragoon  was  compelled  to  obey  his  captor's  orders,  to 
mount  and  ride  into  the  American  camp.     The  e_vent  produced  great  merriment,  and  Wayne  laughed 
immoderately  at  the  idea  of  a  British  dragoon  being  captured  by  his  chaplain. 


142  RICHARD  BLAND. 


marched  thither  with  Maryland  and  Delaware  troops,  with  the  vain  hope  of 
aiding  the  besieged  Lincoln,  at  Charleston.  He  served  under  Gates  until  after 
the  disastrous  battle  near  Camden,  in  August,  and  his  corps  formed  a  part  of 
the  Southern  army,  under  General  Greene,  at  the  close  of  that  year.  In  January 
following,  he  won  unfading  laurels  by  his  skill  and  bravery  at  the  Cowpens, 
under  Morgan,  and  received  a  vote  of  thanks  and  a  silver  medal  from  Congress. 
At  Guilford,  a  month  afterward,  he  greatly  distinguished  himself  when  Greene 
and  Cornwallis  contended  for  the  mastery.  There  he  was  wounded,  returned 
home,  and  did  not  engage  in  active  military  services  afterward.  When  peace 
came,  the  intrepid  soldier  was  conquered  by  the  charms  of  Margaret,  daughter 
of  Chief  Justice  Chew,  around  whose  house,  at  Germantown,  he  had  battled 
manfully,  and  they  were  married.  He  sought  the  pleasures  of  domestic  life,  but 
in  the  Autumn  of  1788,  he  was  drawn  from  his  retirement,  to  fill  the  chair  of 
chief  magistrate  of  his  native  State.  He  held  that  office  three  years.  In  1794, 
he  declined  the  proffered  commission  of  major-general  of  militia,  and  the  follow- 
ing year  he  also  declined  the  office  of  Secretary  of  "War,  to  which  President 
"Washington  invited  him.  He  was  then  a  member  of  the  Maryland  Senate ;  and 
in  1796,  he  was  chosen  to  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  where  he 
served  until  1803.  Then  he  retired  from  public  life  forever;  yet  when,  in  1814, 
the  British  made  hostile  demonstrations  against  Baltimore,  the  old  veteran,  un- 
mindful of  the  weight  of  threescore  years,  prepared  to  take  the  field.  The  battle 
at  North  Point  rendered  such  a  step  unnecessary,  and  he  sat  down  in  the  midst 
of  an  affectionate  family,  to  enjoy  thirteen  years  more  of  his  earthly  pilgrimage. 
His  wife  was  taken  from  him,  by  death,  early  in  1827;  and  on  the  12th  of 
October,  of  that  year,  he  followed  her  to  the  spirit  land,  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
five  years.  Honor,  wealth,  and  the  ardent  love  of  friends,  were  his  lot  in  life ; 
and  few  men  ever  went  down  to  the  grave  more  truly  beloved  and  lamented, 
than  John  Eagar  Howard. 


RICHARD    BLAND. 

A  MONG  the  galaxy  of  patriots  who  composed  the  real  strength  of  the  Virginia 
J\.  House  of  Burgesses,  in  1774,  no  one  was  more  beloved  and  reverenced, 
than  Richard  Bland,  who  was  born  early  in  the  last  century.  He  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  colonial  legislature  of  Virginia  many  years,  and  a  leader  of  the  pop- 
ular branch,  or  House  of  Burgesses.  Although  a  true  republican,  he  was  not 
prepared,  at  the  moment,  to  stand  by  Patrick  Henry  in  his  denunciations  of 
British  tyranny,  in  1765,  yet  he  did  not  flinch,  soon  afterward,  when  duty  de- 
manded bold  action.  He  was  one  of  the  committee  to  prepare  a  remonstrance 
with  parliament,  in  1768 ;  and  in  1773,  he  was  one  of  the  first  general  committee 
of  correspondence,  proposed  by  Dabney  Carr.  He  was  chosen  a  delegate  to  the 
first  Continental  Congress  in  1774,  but  declined  the  appointment  the  following 
year,  because,  as  he  said,  he  was  "  an  old  man,  almost  deprived  of  sight."  Francis 
Lightfoot  Lee,  who  signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence  the  following  year, 
was  appointed  in  his  place ;  and  three  years  afterward,  the  aged  patriot  went  to 
his  final  rest.  Mr.  Wirt  speaks  of  him  as  "  one  of  the  most  enlightened  men  in 
the  colony ;  a  man  of  finished  education,  and  of  the  most  unbending  habits  of 
application.  His  perfect  mastery  of  every  fact  connected  with  the  settlement 
and  progress  of  the  colony,  had  given  him  the  name  of  the  Virginia  Antiquary. 
He  was  a  politician  of  the  first  class,  a  profound  logician,  and  was  also  considered 
as  the  first  writer  in  the  colony." 


CHARLES   COTESWORTH   PINCKNEY. 


143 


CHARLES    COTESWORTH    PINCKNEY. 

"  1TILLIONS  for  defence,  but  not  one  cent  for  tribute,"  were  the  noble  words 
1*1  uttered  by  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney  when,  as  an  ambassador  to  the 
French  government,  some  unaccredited  agents  demanded  a  loan  from  the  United 
Slates,  as  a  prerequisite  to  a  treaty  which  he  had  been  sent  to  negotiate.  That 
sentiment  expressed  the  national  standard  of  independent  integrity,  ever  main- 
tained in  our  intercourse  with  foreign  nations.1  The  author  of  it  was  born  in 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  on  the  25th  of  February,  1746.  His  father  was 
chief  justice  of  South  Carolina,  and  held  a  high  social  position  there.  At  the 
age  of  seven  years  Charles,  with  his  brother  Thomas,  were  taken  to  England  by 
their  father,  to  be  educated.  He  was  first  at  "Westminster,  then  at  Oxford,  and 
when  his  collegiate  course  was  completed,  he  studied  law  in  the  Temple.  On 
his  return  to  Charleston,  in  1769,  he  commenced  a  successful  professional  career, 
and  at  the  same  time  became  an  active  participator  in  the  popular  movements 
against  the  imperial  government.  He  had  taken  a  part  against  the  Stamp  Act, 
in  England,  and  he  was  a  full-fledged  patriot  on  his  arrival  home.  When,  in 
1775,  Christopher  Gadsden  became  colonel  of  a  regiment  raised  by  the  Provin- 

1.  Jackson's  instructions  to  foreign  ministers  were,  "  Ask  nothing  but -what  is  right,  and  submit  to 
nothing  that  is  wrong." 


144  BARON   DE   STEUBEN. 


cial  Congress,  Pinckney  received  the  appointment  of  captain  of  one  of  its  com- 
panies, and  he  went  up  into  North  Carolina,  as  far  as  Newborn,  on  recruiting 
service.  He  wjis  active  in  the  defence  of  his  native  city  the  following  year,  and 
remained  in  service  until  the  fall  of  Charleston,  in  1780.  He  accompanied  Gen- 
eral Robert  Howe  in  his  unfortunate  expedition  to  Florida,  in  1778,  and  assisted 
in  the  repulse  of  Prevost,  from  Charleston,  the  following  year.1  When,  early  in 
1780,  the  British  fleet,  bearing  General  Clinton  and  an  invading  army,  appeared 
off  Charleston,  Pinckney,  now  holding  the  commission  of  colonel,  was  appointed 
to  the  command  of  the  garrison  at  Fort  Moultrie,  in  the  harbor.  When  the  city 
and  its  defences  finally  yielded  to  superior  numbers,  and  were  surrendered, 
Colonel  Pinckney  was  made  a  prisoner.  He  suffered  much  from  sickness  and 
ill-treatment  during  a  captivity  of  almost  two  years,  and  was  not  allowed  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  struggle  in  the  field  during  that  time.  In  February,  1782,  he 
was  exchanged,  and  was  soon  afterward  breveted  brigadier-general.  On  the 
return  of  peace  he  resumed  the  practice  of  his  profession,  and  was  a  member 
of  the  convention  which  framed  the  Federal  Constitution,  in  1787.  He  declined 
a  proffered  seat  in  Washington's  Cabinet,  but  in  1796,  he  accepted  the  appoint- 
ment of  minister  to  the  French  Republic,  then  controlled  by  a  Directory.  2  It 
was  while  in  the  midst  of  personal  peril  there,  that  he  uttered  the  noble  senti- 
ment just  quoted.  When  war  with  France  seemed  inevitable,  in  1797,  and 
Washington  was  chosen  commander-in-chief,  Pinckney  was  appointed  the  second 
major-general  in  the  army.3  He  retired  from  active  life  at  about  the  year  1800, 
and  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  lived  in  elegant  ease,  though  taking  much  in- 
terest in  the  progress  of  public  affairs.  He  found  exquisite  enjoyment  in  the 
bosom  of  his  family  and  the  companionship  of  books,  until  the  latest  hours  of  his 
long  life.  He  died  on  the  16th  of  August,  1825,  in  the  eightieth  year  of  his  age. 


BARON    DE    STEUBEN. 

II UCH  of  the  success  of  the  Continental  army  in  its  more  skillful  achievements, 
i»l  during  the  greater  portion  of  the  War  for  Independence,  was  due  to  the 
science  and  valor  of  several  foreign  officers  engaged  in  its  service ;  and  the  names 
of  La  Fayette,  Steuben,  De  Kalb,  Pulaski,  Koskiusczko,  and  Du  Portal],  will 
ever  be  held  in  grateful  remembrance  by  the  American  people.  To  Frederick 
William  Augustus,  Baron  de  Steuben,  the  army  was  indebted  for  that  superior 
discipline  displayed  on  the  plains  of  Monmouth,  and  afterward.  He  had  been 
an  aid-de-camp  of  Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia;  and  the  Prince  Margrave,  of 
Baden,  in  whose  service  he  afterward  engaged,  gave  him  the  commission  of 
lieutenant-general,  and  decorated  him  with  the  Order  of  Fidelity,  as  a  special 
mark  of  favor.  He  received  titles  and  emoluments^  from  other  monarchs,  and 
splendid  offers  for  the  future,  but  he  left  them  all,  came  to  America  to  help  a 
struggling  young  people  in  their  efforts  to  be  free,  and  joined  the  Continental 
army,  as  a  volunteer,  at  Valley  Forge.  Congress  appointed  him  inspector-gen- 
eral, with  the  rank  and  pay  of  major-general,  in  May,  1778,  and  his  thorough 

1.  General  Prevost  marched  from  Savannah,  with  a  strong  British  force,  to  attack  Charleston,  1n 
1779,  and  appeared  before  the  city.    The  rapid  approach  of  General  Lincoln  caused  him  to  retreat  sud- 
denly by  way  of  the  numerous  islands  along  the  shore  from  Charleston  to  Savannah. 

2.  The  Directory  was  the  executive  power  of  the  French  government,  after  the  Revolution,  and  was 
established  in  1795.     It  consisted  of  five  persons  elected  for  four  years,  and  ruled  in  connection  with  1v,-o 
representative  Chambers,  called  respectively  TJif.  Council  of  Ancients,  and  The  Council  of  Five  Hundred. 

3.  One  of  his  aids,  George  .Washington  Parke  Custis,  of  Arlington  House,  Virginia,  is  yet  living.    Seo 
note  1,  page  55. 


JOHIST  BEOOKS.  145 


discipline  prepared  the  Americans  for  more  efficient  action  in  future.  As  a 
volunteer,  he  fought  at  Monmouth  ;  and  his  services  throughout  the  war  were 
of  the  greatest  benefit.  He  was  active  in  Virginia  from  the  invasion  of  Arnold, 
in  January,  1781,  until  the  capture  of  Cornwallis,  in  October  following.  At  the 
siege  of  Yorktown,  his  skill  and  valor  were  particularly  conspicuous,  for  he 
fought  bravely  and  well  in  the  trenches  there.1  At  the  close  of  the  war,  he 
remained  in  America.  The  State  of  New  Jersey  gave  him  a  small  farm ;  that 
of  New  York  presented  him  with  sixteen  thousand  acres  of  wild  land,  in  Oneida 
county;  and  the  Federal  government  granted  him  a  pension  of  twenty-five 
hundred  dollars  a  year.  He  took  up  his  abode  on  his  New  York  domain,  gave 
one-tenth  of  the  whole  to  his  aids  (North  and  Walker)  and  servants,  and  par- 
celled the  remainder  among  twenty  or  thirty  tenants.  He  built  himself  a  log 
hut  on  the  site  of  the  present  Steubenville,  New  York ;  and  there  the  once 
courted  companion  of  kings  and  nobles — the  ornament  of  gay  courts — lived  in 
chosen  obscurity,  during  the  Summer  months.  His  "Winters  were  spent  in  the 
best  society  in  the  city  of  New  York.  He  died  suddenly  of  apoplexy,  at  his 
log-built  residence,  on  the  28th  of  November,  1795,  at  the  age  of  sixty -four  years. 
His  neighbors  buried  him  in  his  garden ;  but  afterward,  according  to  his  written 
request,  he  was  wrapped  in  his  military  cloak,  placed  in  a  plain  coffin,  and  buried 
in  the  woods  near  by.  "When  a  public  road  passed  over  the  spot,  his  remains 
were  taken  up  and  buried  a  third  time,  in  the  town  of  Steuben,  a  few  miles 
from  Trenton  Falls.  There  a  plain  monument,  erected  in  1826,  covers  his 
grave.2 


JOHN    BROOKS. 

FROM  many  a  district  school-house  in  our  favored  land  have  issued  youths 
of  humble  origin,  who,  by  their  virtues  and  attainments,  have  adorned 
society,  and  honored  their  country.  John  Brooks,  one  of  the  most  eminent  chief 
magistrates  of  Massachusetts,  was  a  graduate  of  one  of  those  "  colleges  for  the 
people,"  and  his  boyhood  and  early  youth  were  spent  in  the  obscure  labors  of  a 
farm.  He  was  born  at  Medford,  in  1752.  At  the  age  of  fourteen  years  he  was 
apprenticed  to  Dr.  Simon  Tufts,  and  his  fellow-student  in  medicine  was  Benjamin 
Thompson,  afterward  the  celebrated  Count  Rumford.  He  always  evinced  a 
fondness  for  military  exercises,  and  organized  the  village  boys  into  train-bands, 
with  himself  as  commander.  He  commenced  the  practice  of  medicine  at  Read- 
ing, and  then,  in  1774,  he  took  command  of  a  company  of  minute-men.  "With 
these,  he  assisted  in  annoying  the  British  forces  in  their  retreat  from  Concord, 
on  the  19th  of  April,  1775,  and  soon  afterward  he  was  commissioned  a  major  in 
the  army  that  gathered  around  Boston.  He  assisted  Prescott  in  throwing  up 
the  redoubt  on  Breed's  Hill,  but  was  absent  on  duty  during  the  battle  the  next 
day.  He  remained  with  the  Continental  army  at  Boston  until  the  following 
year,  and  then  participated  in  the  battles  on  Long  Island  and  at  White  Plains. 
He  was  with  Arnold  in  his  expedition  against  St.  Leger,  at  Fort  Schuyler,  on 
the  Mohawk,  in  1777,  and  bore  the  commission  of  lieutenant-colonel.  At  the 

1.  On  one  occasion,  when  a  bomb-shell  was  about  to  burst,  the  Baron  leapt  into  a  ditch,  followed  by 
Wayne,  who  fell  on  him.     "  Ah,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  the  Baron,  "  I  know  you  are  always  good  at 
covering  a  retreat." 

2.  General  William  North,  one  of  his  aids,  erected  a  mural  monument  to  the  memory  of  Steuben,  in  a 
German  church  in  Nassau  Street,  New  York.     It  is  now  in  the  church  edifice  of  that  congregation,  in 
Forsyth  Street.     General  North  was  United  States  senator,  and  was  twice  Speaker  of  the  New  York 
Assembly.     He  passed  the  latter  years  of  his  life  in  New  London,  Connecticut,  but  died  in  the  city  of 
New  York,  on  the  4th  of  January,  1836,  at  the  age  of  eighty-three  years. 


146  CHARLES  CARROLL. 


battles  at  Saratoga,  in  September  and  October  following,  he  performed  signal 
services  at  the  head  of  a  regiment,  and  he  is  a  conspicuous  person  in  Trumbull's 
picture  of  the  Surrender  of  Burgoyne.  At  the  battle  of  Monmouth  he  was  acting 
adjutant-general ;  and  during  the  whole  war  he  was  a  most  valuable  officer, 
especially  while  assistant  inspector,  under  Baron  Steuben.  Washington  always 
had  the  greatest  confidence  in  his  integrity  and  patriotism ;  and  in  the  crisis  at ' 
Newburgh,  in  the  Spring  of  1783,  when  sedition  and  mutiny  appeared  rife,  the 
commander-in-chief  made  Brooks  his  special  confidant.1 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  Colonel  Brooks,  poor  in  purse  but  rich  in  character, 
resumed  the  practice  of  his  profession,  at  the  same  time  he  held  the  office  of 
major-general  of  militia.  He  was  a  zealous  friend  of  the  Federal  Constitution, 
and  received  local  offices  under  it,  from  the  hands  of  Washington.  When  war 
with  England  was  declared  in  1812,  General  Brooks  was  appointed  adjutant- 
general  of  Massachusetts,  by  Governor  Strong;  and  in  1816,  he  succeeded  that 
gentleman  as  chief  magistrate  of  his  native  State.  For  seven  consecutive  years 
he  performed  the  duties  of  governor  with  dignity  and  fidelity ;  but  declined  a 
reelection  in  1823,  and  retired  to  private  life.  He  continued  to  evince  much 
interest  in  societies  to  which  he  belonged,  especially  that  of  the  Massachusetts 
Medical  Society,  of  which  he  was  president.  Admiring  his  abilities  as  a  states- 
man, the  Faculty  of  Harvard  University  conferred  upon  him  the  honorary  degree 
of  Doctor  of  Laws.  Governor  Brooks  died  on  the  1st  of  March,  1825,  at  the  age 
of  about  seventy-three  years. 


CHARLES     CARROLL. 

rE  last  survivor  of  the  glorious  company  of  those  who  signed  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  was  Charles  Carroll,  who,  to  enable  the  British  ministers 
to  identify  him  as  an  arch-rebel,  and  not  mistake  his  cousin  of  the  same  name, 
added  "of  Carrollton"  to  his  signature  on  that  great  instrument.  He  was  of 
Irish  descent,2  and  was  born  at  Annapolis,  in  Maryland,  on  the  20th  of  Septem- 
ber, 1*737.  His  father  was  a  Roman  Catholic  gentleman  of  large  fortune,  and 
sent  Charles  to  the  Jesuits'  College  at  St.  Omer,  in  France,  when  he  was 
eight  years  of  age.  There  he  remained  six  years,  when  he  was  transferred  to 
another  seminary  of  learning  at  Rheims.  He  was  graduated  at  the  College  of 
Louis  the  Grande  at  the  age  of  seventeen  years.  He  then  commenced  the  study 
of  law  at  Bourges,  remained  there  a  year,  then  went  to  Paris  and  studied  until 
1757,  and  finally  completed  his  professional  education  in  London.  After  an 
absence  of  twenty-two  years,  he  returned  to  Maryland,  in  1765,  a  finished  scholar 
and  well-bred  gentleman.  He  found  his  countrymen  in  a  state  of  high  excite- 
ment on  account  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  at  once  espoused  the  popular  cause  with 
great  zeal.  He  held  a  fluent  and  powerful  pen;  and  as  early  as  1771,  Mr.  Car- 
roll was  known  throughout  the  colonies  as  an  able  advocate  of  popular  liberty. 

1.  The  remnant  of  the  Continental  army,  stationed  at  Newburgh  in  1783,  became  much  discontented 
by  the  prospect  of  being  soon  disbanded  without  being  paid  the  amount  of  arrears  due,  or  any  provision 
for  the  future  being  made  for  them.     An  anonymous  writer  (afterward   acknowledged  to  be  Major 
Armstrong),  called  a  meeting  of  the  officers  to  adopt  measures  to  compel  Congress  to  make  a  satisfactory 
arrangement,  or  else  to  take  redress  in  their  own  hands.    Washington  took  immediate  steps  to  prevent 
the  convention,  and  called  a  meeting,  himself,  of  the  officers.    It  resulted  in  a  noble  exhibition  of  patriot- 
ism on  the  part  of  the  great  body,  and  the  army  was  saved  the  disgrace  of  a  mutiny,  after  so  much 
Buffering  in  the  glorious  cause. 

2.  His  grandfather,  Daniel  Carroll,  was  a  native  of  Littemourna,  in  Ireland.     He  was  a  clerk  in  the 
office  of  Lord  Powis,  and  under  the  patronage  of  the  third  Lord  Baltimore,  principal  proprietor  of  Mary- 
land, he  emigrated  to  that  colony  in  the  reign  of  James  II. 


CHARLES   CARROLL. 


147 


In  1772,  he  engaged  in  an  anonymous  newspaper  discussion  with  the  secretary 
of  the  colony,  in  which  he  opposed  the  assumed  right  of  the  British  government 
to  tax  the  colonies  without  their  consent.  The  unknown  writer  was  thanked 
by  the  Legislature,  through  the  public  prints,  for  his  noble  defence  of  popular 
rights.  When  the  author  became  known,  he  was  at  once  regarded  as  the  favorite 
of  the  people. 

Mr.  Carroll  early  perceived,  and  fearlessly  expressed  the  necessity  of  a  resort 
to  arms,  and  he  was  among  the  most  zealous  advocates  for  the  political  inde- 
pendence of  the  colonies,  even  before  that  question  assumed  a  tangible  form  in 
the  public  mind.  He  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  first  committee  of  safety,  at 
Annapolis,  and  in  1775,  took  his  seat  in  the  Provincial  Congress.  The  Mary- 
land convention  had  steadily  opposed  the  sentiment  of  independence  which  was 
taking  hold  of  the  public  mind,  and  that  fact  accounts  for  the  delay  in  sending 
Mr.  Carroll  to  the  Continental  Congress.  He  visited  Philadelphia  early  in  1776, 
and  Congress  appointed  him  one  of  a  committee,  with  Dr.  Franklin  and  Samuel 
Chase,  to  visit  Canada  on  a  political  mission.1  Soon  after  his  return,  the  views 
of  the  Maryland  convention  having  changed,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the 
Continental  Congress,  too  late  to  vote  for  independence,  on  the  4th  of  July,  but 

1.  See  sketch  of  Archbishop  Carroll. 


148  EBENEZER  STEVENS. 


in  time  to  affix  his  signature  to  the  instrument  on  the  2d  of  August.1  Ten  days 
afterward  he  was  appointed  a  member  of  the  Board  of  "War,  and  held  that  posi- 
tion during  the  remainder  of  his  service  in  Congress.  He  assisted  in  framing  a 
constitution  for  his  native  State,  in  1776,  and  in  1778,  he  left  the  national  coun- 
cil to  take  a  more  active  part  in  the  public  affairs  of  Maryland.  He  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Maryland  Senate,  in  1781,  and  in  1788,  he  was  elected  one  of  the  first 
senators  from  that  State  in  the  Federal  Congress.  There  he  remained  two  years, 
when  he  again  took  his  seat  in  his  State  Senate,  and  retained  it  for  ten  consec- 
utive years.  He  then  retired  from  public  life,  at  the  age  of  sixty-four  years,  and 
in  the  quiet  seclusion  of  a  happy  home  he  watched  with  interest  the  progress  of 
his  beloved  country  for  more  than  thirty  years  longer.  When  Adams  and 
Jefferson  died,  in  1826,  Mr.  Carroll  was  left  alone  on  earth,  in  the  relation  which 
he  bore  to  his  fifty-five  colleagues  who  signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
He  lived  on,  six  years  longer,  an  object  of  the  highest  veneration ;  and  finally, 
on  the  14th  of  November,  1832,  his  spirit  passed  peacefully  and  calmly  from  earth, 
when  he  was  in  the  ninety-sixth  year  of  his  age. 


ERENEZER    STEVENS. 

MANY  of  the  meritorious  officers  of  the  artillery  service  in  the  "War  for  Inde- 
pendence have  not  found  that  prominence  in  history  which  they  deserve. 
Among  those  thus  overlooked  was  General  Stevens,  who,  from  the  earliest  until 
the  latest  period  of  the  contest,  was  one  of  the  most  efficient  and  patriotic  sol- 
diers of  the  time.  He  was  born  in  Boston,  in  1752,  and  at  an  early  age  became 
thoroughly  imbued  with  the  principles  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty.2  He  was  one  of 
those  who  "made  Boston  Harbor  a  tea-pot,"3  in  December,  1773,  when  fearing 
unpleasant  consequences,  he  withdrew  to  Rhode  Island.  He  went  with  the 
Rhode  Island  Army  of  Observation  to  Roxbury,  under  General  Greene,  in  1775, 
and  his  skill  in  the  artillery  and  engineering  department  was  such,  that  early  in 
December  of  that  year,  Washington  directed  him  to  raise  two  companies  of  ar- 
tillery in  Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island,  and  proceed  to  join  Montgomery  in 
his  attack  on  Quebec.  The  commission  was  speedily  executed  by  the  young 
soldier,  and  after  great  fatigue  in  dragging  cannons  through  snow  and  over  rough 
hills,  the  little  expedition  reached  Three  Rivers  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  heard 
of  the  disastrous  blow  given  to  the  Americans,  at  Quebec.  Stevens  returned  to  St. 
John's  on  the  Sorel,  and  rendered  efficient  service  in  the  Northern  Department 
during  1776.  He  was  in  command  of  the  artillery  at  Ticonderoga,  in  1777,  and 
shared  in  the  mortifications  of  St.  Clair's  retreat  before  Burgoyne,  in  July.  He 
joined  General  Schuyler  at  Fort  Edward,  and  was  so  distinguished  as  the  com- 
mander of  the  artillery  in  the  battles  which  resulted  in  the  capture  of  Burgoyne, 
that  Trumbull,  in  his  picture  of  that  scene,  introduced  Captain  Stevens  in  a  con- 

1.  Mr.  Carroll  was  elected  on  ihe  4th  of  July,  and  took  his  seat  on  the  18th  of  the  same  month.    He 
affixed  his  signature  to  the  Declaration,  with  most  of  the  others,  a  little  more  than  a  fortnight  aftsrward. 
See  sketch  of  John  Carroll. 

2.  During  the  excitement  incident  to  the  Stamp  Act,  the  patriotic  opposers  of  the  measure  formed 
associations  for  the  purpose  in  the  different  colonies,  and  styled  themselves  Sons  of  Liberty.     In  like 
manner  a  large  association  of  ladies  was  formed  in  Boston,  who  pledged  themselves  not  to  use  tea,  while 
an  obnoxious  duty  was  upon  it,  and  called  themselves  Daughters  of  Liberty.     A  full  account  of  these 
associations  will  be  found  in  Lossing's  Pictorial  Field  Book  of  the  Revolution. 

3.  The  people  of  Boston  and  other  sea-ports  resolved  that  cargoes  of  tea,  which  the  East  India  Com- 
pany had  sent  to  consignees  in  America,  should  not  be  landed  so  long  as  an  impost  duty  was  levied  on 
the  article.     An  attempt  to  land  two  cargoes  in  Boston  caused  a  large  company,  some  of  them  in  the 
disguise  of  Mohawk  Indians,  to  go  on  board  of  the  vessels  on  a  moonlight  night,  in  December,  1773,  and 
break  open  and  cast  into  the  waters  of  the  harbor,  all  the  chests  of  the  obnoxious  article. 


ISAIAH  THOMAS. 


149 


spicuous  position.  He  continued  in  command  of  the  artillery,  at  Albany,  until 
the  Autumn  of  1778,  when  he  became  attached  to  Colonel  Lamb's  regiment,  in 
the  New  York  line.  He  was  made  lieutenant-colonel,  by  brevet,  in  April,  1778. 
For  the  contemplated  invasion  of  Canada,  La  Fayette  selected  him  as  the  chief 
of  his  artillery;  and  early  in  1781,  he  accompanied  the  Marquis  into  Virginia, 
to  oppose  Arnold.  General  Knox,  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  artillery,  had 
the  highest  confidence  in  his  excellence,  and  invested  him  with  full  powers,  in 
the  Autumn  of  1781,  to  collect  and  forward  artillery  munitions  for  the  siege  of 
Yorktown.  In  the  decisive  actions  which  resulted  in  the  capture  of  Cornwallis 
and  his  army,  Colonel  Stevens  was  eminently  efficient ;  and  in  Trumbull's  pic- 
ture of  that  event,  he  is  seen  mounted,  at  the  head  of  his  regiment.  From  that 
time  until  the  close  of  the  war,  he  was  with  Colonel  Lamb  at  "West  Point  and 
vicinity ;  and  when  peace  came,  he  commenced  mercantile  life  in  the  city  of 
New  York.  He  accepted  office  in  the  military  corps  of  his  adopted  State,  and 
rose  to  the  rank  of  major-general,  commanding  the  division  of  artillery  of  the 
State  of  New  York.  In  1800,  he  superintended  the  construction  of  the  fortifi- 
cations on  Governor's  Island,  in  the  harbor  of  New  York.  He  held  the  office 
of  major-general  of  artillery  when  another  war  with  England  occurred,  in  1812, 
and  he  was  called  into  the  service  of  the  United  States,  in  defence  of  the  city 
of  his  adoption.  He  was  senior  major-general  until  the  return  of  peace,  in  1815. 
For  many  years  he  was  among  the  most  distinguished  merchants  of  the  com- 
mercial metropolis,  and  died  at  the  green  old  age  of  about  seventy-one  years,  on 
the  2d  of  September,  1823. 


ISAIAH     THOMAS. 

PRINTING,  "the  art  preservative  of  all  arts,"  has  been  represented,  at  all 
-L  times  in  its  history,  by  men  eminent  for  their  intellectual  greatness  and 
extensive  social  and  political  influence.  Philosophers,  statesmen,  and  theolo- 
gians, of  the  highest  order  of  genius,  have  been  fellows  of  the  craft.  Eminent 
among  the  best  was  Isaiah  Thomas,  the  historian  of  the  art.  He  was  born  in 
Boston,  in  1749,  and  at  six  years  of  age,  being  the  son  of  a  poor  widow,  he  was 
placed  in  charge  of  Zechariah  Fowle,  a  ballad  and  pamphlet  printer,  to  learn  the 
great  art.  After  an  apprenticeship  of  eleven  years,  he  went  to  Nova  Scotia, 
where  he  worked  for  a  Dutch  printer,  awhile.  There,  as  well  as  in  the  other 
colonies,  the  Stamp  Act  was  just  beginning  to  create  much  opposition  to  the 
imperial  government,  and  young  Thomas,  who  had  been  nurtured  in  the  Boston 
school  of  politics,  took  a  prominent  part  against  the  measure.  He  was  threat- 
ened with  arrest,  but  the  repeal  of  the  act  lulled  the  storm,  and  in  1767,  he 
returned  to  New  England.  He  afterward  went  to  Wilmington,  North  Carolina, 
and  also  to  Charleston,  in  search  of  employment,  but  without  success.  Disap- 
pointed and  poor  he  returned  to  Boston,  in  1770,  and  formed  a  business  partner- 
ship with  his  old  master.  It  continued  only  three  months,  when  Thomas  pur- 
chased the  printing  establishment  of  Fowle,  on  credit,  worked  industriously  and 
well,  and  in  March  following  he  issued  the  first  number  of  "  The  Massachusetts 
Spy  ;l  a  weekly  political  and  commercial  Paper ;  open  to  all  Parties,  but  influ- 
enced by  None."  It  gave  the  ministerial  party  a  great  deal  of  uneasiness,  and 
vain  efforts  were  made  to  control  or  destroy  it.2  When  the  British  held  martial 

1.  Fowle  &  Thomas  had  issued  a  tri- weekly  paper  with  this  name  the  previous  year,  but  it  did  not 
continue  long.     The  new  weekly  paper  was  printed  on  a  larger  sheet  than  any  yet  published  in  Boston. 

2.  An  article  against  the  government,  which  appeared  in  the  Spy  toward  the  close  of  1771,  caused 
Governor  Hutchinson  to  order  Thomas  before  the  council,  to  answer.    The  bold  printer  refused  com- 


150  RUFUS  KING. 


rule  in  Boston,  in  1775,  Thomas  took  his  establishment  to  Worcester,  and  four- 
teen days  after  the  skirmishes  at  Lexington  and  Concord,  he  commenced  the 
publication  of  the  Spy,  there.  He  continued  in  Worcester  after  the  war,  and 
was  blessed  with  prosperity.  He  formed  a  partnership,  in  1788,  and  opened  a 
printing-house  and  book-store  in  Boston,  under  the  firm  of  Thomas  and  Andrews. 
They  planted  similar  establishments  in  other  places,  to  the  number  of  eight ; 
and  in  1791,  they  published  a  fine  folio  edition  of  the  Bible.  By  industry  and 
economy,  Thomas  amassed  a  handsome  fortune,  and  was  an  honored  citizen  of 
his  adopted  town.  He  was  one  of  the  principal  founders  of  the  Antiquarian 
Society  at  Worcester,  and  was  its  president  and  chief  patron.  In  1810,  he 
printed  and  published  his  History  of  Printing  in  America,  in  two  octavo  volumes, 
which  has  ever  been  a  standard  work  on  the  subject.  He  lived  more  than 
twenty  years  afterward,  the  Patriarch  of  the  Press.  His  death  occurred  at 
Worcester  on  the  4th  of  April,  1831,  when  he  was  eighty-two  years  of  age. 


RUFUS    KINO. 

ALMOST  every  young  man  of  talent,  at  the  commencement  of  the  War  for 
Independence,  engaged  in  the  public  service,  civil  or  military,  and  often- 
times in  both.  Young  men  of  every  profession  and  from  every  class  became 
soldiers,  as  volunteers  or  levies,  or  took  part  in  the  public  councils.  These 
were  schools  of  the  highest  practical  importance  to  those  who  were  to  be  par- 
ticipants in  the  founding  of  the  new  republican  confederation.  Among  the 
worthiest  and  most  active  of  these,  was  Rufus  King,  son  of  an  eminent  merchant 
of  Scarborough,  Maine.  He  was  born  in  the  year  1755,  and  received  a  good  pre- 
paratory education  under  Samuel  Moody,  of  Byfield.  He  entered  Harvard  College, 
in  1773,  and  remained  there  until  the  students  were  dispersed  when  the  American 
army  gathered  around  Boston.  Young  King  resumed  classical  studies  with  his 
old  teacher  in  the  Autumn  of  1775.  He  returned  to  college  in  1777,  and  was 
graduated  with  great  reputation  as  a  classical  scholar  and  expert  orator.  He 
studied  law  under  Judge  Parsons,  at  Newburyport.  after  having  served  as  aid 
to  General  Glover,  for  a  short  time,  in  Sullivan's  expedition  against  the  British 
on  Rhode  Island,  in  the  Summer  of  1778.  In  1780,  he  was  admitted  to  the 
bar,  and  his  first  effort,  as  a  pleader,  was  as  adverse  counsel  to  his  eminent  law- 
tutor.  It  was  an  effort  of  great  power,  and  opened  at  once  the  high  road  to 
proud  distinction  in  his  profession.  The  people  appreciated  his  talent ;  and  in 

1784,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts.     He  was 
chosen  a  representative  of  Massachusetts,  in  Congress,  the  same  year ;  and  in 

1785,  he  introduced  a  resolution,  in  that  body,  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  terri- 
tories north-west  of  the  Ohio  river.     In  1787,  he  was  chosen  a  delegate  to  the 
Federal  Convention,  and  there  he  was  one  of  the  most  efficient  and  zealous 
friends  of  the  constitution  framed  by  that  body.     In  the  Massachusetts  conven- 
tion called  to  consider  that  instrument,  he  nobly  advocated  its  high  claims  to 
support.     He  soon  afterward  made  New  York  city  his  residence,  for  there  he 
had  married  Miss  Alsop,  daughter  of  one  of  the  delegates  in  the  first  Continental 
Congress;  and  there  was  a  wider  field  for  his  extraordinary  mental  powers. 
He  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  State  Legislature,  in  1789,  and  in  the  Summer 

pliance  ;  and  the  attorney-general  tried,  but  in  vair.,  to  have  him  indicted  by  the  grand  jury.  Such 
resistance  was  made  to  these  measures,  that  the  government  at  length  deemed  it  prudent  to  cease  efforts 
to  silence  his  seditious  voice. 


RUFUS   KING. 


151 


of  that  year,  he  and  General  Schuyler  were  elected  the  first  senators  in  Congress, 
from  New  York.  On  the  promulgation  of  the  treaty  made  by  Jay,  with  the 
British  government,  in  1794,  there  was  much  excitement,  and  King  and  Hamil- 
ton warmly  defended  it,  in  a  series  of  papers  signed  Camillus,  all  of  which,  ex- 
cept the  first  ten,  were  written  by  the  former.  In  the  United  States  Senate,  he 
was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  its  orators,  and  his  influence  was  everywhere 
potential. 

In  the  Spring  of  1796,  President  Washington  appointed  Mr.  King  minister 
plenipotentiary  to  Great  Britain,  where  he  continued  to  represent  his  country 
with  great  dignity  and  ability  during  the  whole  of  Mr.  Adams'  administration, 
and  the  first  two  years  of  Mr.  Jefferson's.  During  his  sojourn  in  London,  he 
successfully  adjusted  many  difficulties  between  his  own  government  and  that  of 
Great  Britain,  and  he  possessed  the  warmest  personal  esteem  of  the  first  men  in 
Europe.  After  his  return  home,  in  1803,  he  retired  to  his  farm,  on  Long  Island, 
and  remained  in  comparative  repose  until  aroused  to  action  by  the  events  im- 
mediately preceding  the  war  declared  in  1812.  While  at  the  court  of  Great 
Britain,  he  had  made  unwearied  efforts  to  induce  that  government  to  abandon 
its  unjust  and  offensive  system  of  impressing  seamen  into  the  naval  service,  and 
ho  took  an  active  part  in  public  affairs  during  the  first  year  of  the  war.  Ho  was 


152  HENKY   LEE. 


elected  to  the  United  States  Senate,  for  six  years,  in  1813,  and  in  1820,  he  was 
reflected  for  the  same  length  of  time.  Hoping  to  be  useful  to  his  country  in  the 
adjustment  of  some  foreign  relations,  Mr.  King  accepted  the  appointment  of 
minister  to  Great  Britain,  from  Mr.  Adams,  in  1825,  and  took  up  his  residence 
in  London.  Severe  illness  during  the  voyage  disabled  him  for  active  duties,  and 
after  being  absent  about  a  year,  he  returned  home.  His  health  gradually  failed, 
and  on  the  29th  of  April,  1827,  he  died  at  his  seat,  near  Jamaica,  Long  Island, 
at  the  age  of  seventy-two  years. 


HENRY    LEE. 

THE  right  arm  of  the  Southern  army,  under  General  Greene,  was  the  legion 
of  lieutenant-colonel  Henry  Lee,  and  its  commander  was  one  of  the  most 
useful  officers  throughout  the  war.  He  was  born  in  Virginia,  on  the  29th  of 
January,  1756.  His  early  education  was  intrusted  to  a  private  tutor  under  his 
father's  roof,  and  his  collegiate  studies  were  at  Princeton,  under  the  guidance 
of  the  patriotic  Dr.  Witherspoon.  There  he  was  graduated  in  1774;  and  two 
years  afterward,  when  only  twenty  years  of  age,  he  'was  appointed,  on  the  nom- 
ination of  Patrick  Henry,  to  the  command  of  one  of  the  six  companies  of  cavalry 
raised  by  his  native  State  for  the  Continental  service.  These  were  at  first  under 
the  general  command  of  the  accomplished  Colonel  Theodoric  Bland.1  In  1777, 
Lee's  corps  was  placed  under  the  immediate  command  of  Washington,  and  it 
soon  acquired  a  high  character  for  discipline  and  bravery.  Its  leader  was  pro- 
moted to  major,  with  the  command  of  a  separate  corps  of  cavalry ;  and  with 
this  legion  he  performed  many  daring  exploits.  In  July,  1779,  he  captured  a 
British  fort,  at  Paulus's  Hook  (now  Jersey  City),  for  which  Congress  gave  him 
thanks  and  a  gold  medal.  He  was  at  Tappan  when  Andre  was  tried  and  con- 
demned, in  the  Autumn  of  1780;  and  from  his  corps  Washington  selected  the 
brave  Sergeant  Champe  to  attempt  the  seizure  of  Arnold,  in  New  York,  so  as 
to  punish  the  really  guilty,  and  let  the  involuntary  spy  go  free.2 

Lee  was  promoted  to  lieutenant-colonel,  in  November,  1780,  and  early  in  1781, 
he  joined  the  army  under  Greene,  in  the  Carolinas.  In  connection  with  Marion, 
and  other  Southern  partisans,  he  performed  efficient  service  for  many  months,  in 
the  region  of  the  Santee  and  its  tributaries.  He  was  active  in  Greene's  famous 
retreat  before  Cornwallis,  from  the  Yadkin  to  the  Virginia  shores  of  the  Dan, 
and  in  the  battles  at  Guilford,  Augusta,  Ninety-Six,  and  Eutaw  Springs,  the 
services  of  his  legion  were  of  vast  importance,  for  Lee  was  always  in  the  front 
of  success  as  well  as  of  danger.  Soon  after  the  latter  battle,  he  left  the  field, 
returned  to  Virginia,  and  married  a  daughter  of  Philip  Ludwell  Lee,  of  Stratford. 
He  bore  to  civil  life  the  assurance  of  his  Southern  commander,  that  his  services 
had  been  greater  than  those  of  any  one  man  attached  to  the  army. 

Mr.  Lee  resided  with  his  father-in-law,  and  in  1786,  was  elected  to  a  seat  in 

1.  He  was  a  native  of  Virginia,  qualified  himself  for  the  practice  of  medicine,  but  cast  it  aside  for  the 
duties  of  a  soldier,  when  the  war  broke  out.     He  performed  many  brilliant  services  wilh  his  corps  of 
dragoons,  and  he  was  in  command  of  the  British  and  German  captives,  taken  at  Saratoga,  while  on 
their  march  to,  and  residence  in  Virginia.    In  1780,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  Congress.    He  was  op- 
posed to  the  Federal  Constitution,  but  acquiesced  in  the  will  of  the  majority,  and  represented  his  district 
in  the  Federal  Congress.    He  died  at  New  York,  in  June,  1790,  while  attending  a  session  of  Congress, 
at  the  age  of  forty -eight  years. 

2.  Washington  was  anxious  to  save  Andre,  and  made  great  efforts  to  secure  the  person  of  Arnold. 
Sergeant  Champe  went  to  the  British  in  New  York,  as  a  deserter,  enlisted  in  Arnold's  corps,  and  just 
as  his  scheme  for  seizing  the  traitor  and  conveying  him  across  the  Hudson,  on  a  dark  night,  was  per- 
fected, that  corps  embarked  for  Virginia,  with  Champe.    He  afterward  deserted,  and  joined  Lee's  legion 
in  North  Carolina. 


JOHN  RUTLEDGE.  153 


the  Continental  Congress,  where  he  served  his  constituency  faithfully  until  the 
adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution.  In  1791,  he  succeeded  Beverly  Randolph 
as  governor  of  Virginia,  and  held  that  office  three  consecutive  years.  "When,  in 
1794,  resistance  to  excise  laws  was  made  in  Western  Pennsylvania,  and  the 
speck  of  civil  war,  known  as  The  Whiskey  Insurrection,  appeared,  "Washington 
appointed  Governor  Lee  to  the  command  of  the  troops  sent  to  quell  the  rebellion. 
He  performed  his  duty  well,  but  made  many  bitter  enemies  among  the  con- 
temners  of  the  law.  In  1799,  he  was  a  member  of  the  Federal  Congress,  and 
was  chosen  by  that  body  to  pronounce  a  funeral  oration,  on  the  death  of  Wash- 
ington, in  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  He  retired  to  private  life, 
in  1801,  and  for  many  years  was  much  annoyed  by  pecuniary  embarrassments. 
It  was  while  restrained^  within  the  limits  of  Spottsylvania  county,  by  his  creditors, 
in  1809,  that  he  wrote'his  interesting  Memoirs  of  the  War  in  the  Southern  Depart- 
ment of  the  United  States.  He  was  active  in  attempts  to  quell  a  political  mob, 
in  Baltimore,  in  1814,  and  was  so  severely  wounded,  that  he  never  recovered. 
Towards  the  close  of  1817,  he  went  to  the  West  Indies,  for  his  health,  but  found 
no  sensible  relief.  On  his  return  the  following  Spring,  he  stopped  to  visit  a 
daughter  of  General  Greene,  on  Cumberland  Island,  on  the  coast  of  Georgia, 
and  there  he  expired  on  the  25th  of  March,  1818,  at  the  age  of  sixty-two  years. 


JOHN    RUTLEDGrE. 

LIKE  Governor  Trumbull  in  New  England,  John  Rutledge  was  the  soul  of 
patriotic  activity  in  South  Carolina,  during  the  darkest  period  of  the  Revo- 
lution, whether  in  civil  authority  or  as  general  director  of  military  movements. 
He  was  a  native  of  Ireland,  and  came  to  America  with  his  father,  Doctor  John 
Rutledge,  in  1735.  After  receiving  the  best  education  that  could  bo  obtained 
in  Charleston,  he  went  to  London,  and  prepared  for  the  profession  of  the  law,  at 
the  Temple.1  In  1761,  he  returned  to -Charleston,  became  an  active  and  highly 
esteemed  member  of  his  profession,  and  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  Gadsden, 
Laurens,  and  others,  in  defence  of  popular  rights.  He  was  chosen  one  of  the 
representatives  of  his  adopted  State,  in  the  first  Continental  Congress,  with  his 
brother,  Edward,  as  one  of  his  colleagues.  When,  in  the  Spring  of  1776,  the 
civil  government  of  South  Carolina  was  revised,  and  a  temporary  State  Consti- 
tution was  framed,  Rutledge  was  appointed  president  of  the  State,  and  com- 
mander-in-chief  of  its  military.  Under  his  efficient  administration,  Charleston 
was  prepared  for  the  attack  made  in  June,  by  Clinton  and  Parker,  and  the  enemy 
was  repulsed.  His  patriotism  was  never  doubted,  yet,  like  many  others  of  the 
aristocracy,  he  had  not  entire  faith  in  the  wisdom  and  integrity  of  the  people. 
When,  therefore,  in  1778,  a  permanent  constitution  for  South  Carolina  was 
adopted,  he  refused  his  assent,  because  he  thought  it  too  democratic.  His  preju- 
dice yielded,  however,  and  in  1779,  he  was  chosen  governor  under  it,  and  was 
invested  with  temporary  dictatorial  powers  by  the  legislature.  He  took  the 
field  at  the  head  of  the  militia,  and  managed  both  civil  and  military  affairs  with 
great  skill  and  energy,  until  after  the  fall  of  Charleston,  in  1780.2  "When  Greene, 
aided  by  the  southern  partisan  leaders,  drove  the  British  from  the  interior,  to 

1.  This  was  the  most  celebrated  place  for  law  students  in  London.    The  building  or  buildings  were  so 
called,  because  they  formerly  belonged  to  the  Knights  Templars.     They  are  designated  as  the  Inner 
ana  the  Middle  Temple.     The  original  Temple-hall,  or  house  of  the  Templars,  was  erected  in  1572  ;  and 
lemple-bar  was  built  just  one  hundred  years  afterward. 

2.  Charleston  was  besieged  in  the  Spring  of  1780,  by  a  combined  land  and  naval  force,  under  General 
Sir  Henry  Clinton  and  Admiral  Arbuthnot.     It  was  defended  by  Lincoln,  with  a  feeble  force,  for  nearly 
three  months.     On  the  12th  of  May,  1780,  it  was  surrendered  to  the  British 

7* 


154  JOHN  LANGDON. 


the  sea-board,  in  1*781,  Rutledge  convened  a  legislative  assembly  at  Jackson- 
borough,  and  thoroughly  re-established  civil  government.  After  the  war  ho 
was  made  judge  of  the  Court  of  Chancery.  He  was  a  member  of  the  convention 
that  framed  the  constitution  of  the  United  States;  and  in  1789,  was  elevated  to 
the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  Republic,  as  associate  justice.  He  was 
appointed  chief  justice  of  South  Carolina,  in  1791;  and  in  1796,  he  was  called 
to  the  duties  of  chief  justice  of  the  United  States.  In  every  official  station  he 
displayed  equal  energy  and  sterling  integrity ;  and  while  yet  bearing  the  robes 
of  the  highest  judicial  office  in  the  Republic,  he  was  summoned  from  earth.  His 
death  occurred  in  July,  1800,  when  he  was  about  seventy  years  of  age. 


JOHN    LANQDON. 

"  "V" OUR  head  will  be  a  button  for  a  gallows  rope,"  said  Secretary  Atkinson  to 
JL  young  John  Langdon,  toward  the  close  of  1774,  after  he  and  others, 
among  whom  was  the  future  General  Sullivan,  had  seized  the  fort  at  Portsmouth, 
and  carried  off  a  hundred  barrels  of  powder,  and  a  quantity  of  small  arms,  before 
Governor  "Went worth  even  suspected  such  a  daring  enterprise.1  That  brave 
hero  and  future  statesman  was  born  in  the  town  of  Portsmouth,  New  Hamp- 
shire, in  1740.  He  was  educated  at  a  public  grammar  school,  prepared  himself 
for  mercantile  life,  and  prosecuted  business  upon  the  sea  until  the  great  ocean 
of  public  feeling  began  to  be  agitated  by  the  tempest  of  the  Revolution.  Then 
he  espoused  the  republican  cause,  and  his  first  overt  act  of  rebellion  and  treason 
was  the  seizure  of  the  powder  and  arms,  above  alluded  to.  In  January,  1775, 
he  was  chosen  a  delegate  to  the  Continental  Congress.  There  he  remained 
until  1776,  when  affairs  in  his  own  State  demanded  his  presence  there.  He  also 
served  as  a  volunteer  in  some  military  expeditions.  In  1777,  he  was  Speaker 
of  the  New  Hampshire  Assembly ;  and  when  Burgoyne  was  approaching  the 
Hudson  with  his  invading  army,  and  the  whole  North  and  East  were  in  com- 
motion, Langdon  offered  to  loan  the  State  three  thousand  hard  dollars,  and  the 
avails  of  his  silver  plate  and  some  West  India  goods,  to  equip  men  for  the  army 
under  Gates,  remarking  that  if  the  American  cause  should  triumph,  he  would 
get  his  pay,  if  not,  his  property  would  be  of  no  value  to  him.  He  did  more,  for, 
with  many  members  of  the  New  Hampshire  legislature,  he  served  as  a  volunteer 
in  the  battles  at  Saratoga,  which  resulted  in  the  capture  of  Burgoyne.  Mr. 
Langdon  was  president  of  the  New  Hampshire  convention  that  framed  the  State 
Constitution,  in  1779;  and  the  same  year  he  was  appointed  Continental  agent 
to  contract  for  building  some  ships  for  the  service  of  Congress.  He  was  again 
elected  to  a  seat  in  Congress,  in  1783,  and  in  March,  1785,  he  was  chosen  chief 
magistrate  of  his  native  State.  He  represented  New  Hampshire  (with  Nicholas 
Gilman)  in  the  convention  which  framed  the  Federal  Constitution,  was  its  zeal- 
ous supporter,  and  after  serving  another  term  as  governor,  or  president  of  his 
State,  was  chosen  to  a  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate,  where  he  served  about 
ten  years.  He  was  afterward  an  active  member  of  the  State  Legislature,  and 
was  governor  of  the  State  almost  four  years.  He  retired  into  private  life,  in 
1812,  whither  he  carried  the  most  profound  respect  of  his  countrymen.  That 
venerable  patriot  died  at  his  birth-place,  on  the  18th  of  September,  1819,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-eight  years. 

1.  Atkinson  was  Langdon's  personal  friend,  and  was  in  earnest.  The  crowd  present  assured  Langdon 
that  they  would  protect  him  at  all  hazards.  Atkinson  advised  him  to  flee  from  the  country,  but  the 
young  patriot  remained,  and  in  all  the  trying  scenes  that  soon  followed  he  was  nobly  sustained  by  his 
fellow-citizens. 


ROBERT   FULTON. 


155 


ROBERT    FULTON. 

THE  genius  of  Fulton  was  of  no  ordinary  mold.  It  began  to  unfold  in  less 
than  ten  years  after  his  birth,  which  occurred  at  Little  Britain,  Lancaster 
county,  Pennsylvania,  in  1765.  His  parents  were  industrious  and  virtuous 
natives  of  Ireland,  in  easy  but  not  affluent  circumstances,  and  Protestants  in 
religious  faith.  His  early  education  was  meagre,  but  application  in  after  life 
supplied  all  deficiencies.  At  the  age  of  seventeen  years  he  was  painting  land- 
scapes and  portraits  in  Philadelphia,  and  educating  his  mechanical  faculties  by 
observations  in  the  workshops  of  that  capitol.  Pleased  with  his  love  of  art,  his 
friends  sent  him  to  London,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one  years,  to  receive  instruc- 
tion in  painting,  from  the  eminent  Benjamin  West.  He  formed  one  of  that 
artist's  family  for  several  years ;  and  then,  for  a  season,  he  resided  in  Devon- 
shire, and  enjoyed  the  society  of  the  Duke  of  Bridgewater  and  Earl  of  Stanhope,1 
whose  tastes  for  mechanics  developed  and  encouraged  those  of  Fulton. 

Internal  navigation  by  canals,  and  improvements  in  machinery,  now  engrossed 
his  attention,  and  having  heard  of  Fitch's  experiments  in  the   application  of 


i. 

use  unt 


lanhope  was  the  inventor  of  the  printing:  press,  known  by  his  name,  and  which  was  in  general 
til  succeeded  by  the  invention  of  Andrew  Ramaere. 


156  HUGH  WILLIAMSON. 

steam  to  the  propulsion  of  boats,  a  new  and  glorious  vision  filled  his  mind  with 
its  splendors.  He  abandoned  the  profession  of  a  painter,  and  became  a  civil 
engineer.  In  the  Summer  of  1797,  he  entered  the  family  of  Joel  Barlow,  in 
Paris,  and  there,  for  seven  years,  he  assiduously  pursued  the  study  of  the  nat- 
ural sciences  and  of  modern  languages.  There  he  became  acquainted  with  the 
wealthy  and  influential  Robert  R.  Livingston.  That  gentleman  fired  the  zeal 
of  Fulton,  by  representing  the  immense  advantages  to  be  derived  from  the  use 
of  steam  in  navigating  the  inland  waters  of  the  United  States.  Wealth,  talent, 
and  genius  joined  hands,  and  Fulton  and  Livingston  navigated  the  Seine,  by  a 
steam-boat,  in  1803.  They  came  to  America,  and  in  1807,  the  steamer  Cler- 
mont,  Fulton's  experiment  boat,  made  a  voyage  from  New  York  to  Albany,  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles,  in  thirty-six  hours,  against  wind  and  tide !  His  triumph 
was  complete  and  his  fame  was  secured. 

Fulton  received  his  first  patent  in  1809,  and  for  several  years  he  was  engaged 
in  the  perfection  of  steam-boat  machinery,  and  in  the  improvement  and  con- 
struction of  submarine  explosive  machines,  called  Torpedoes,  to  be  used  for  blow- 
ing up  vessels  of  war.  He  was  successful  in  the  construction  of  submarine 
batteries;  and  his  great  heart  was  delighted,  in  1814,  by  the  appropriation  by 
Congress  of  three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  dollars,  for  the  construction  of 
a  steam  ship-of-war,  under  his  directions.  The  Fulton  was  launched  in  July  of 
that  year;  and  he  who  saw  in -her  another  triumph  of  his  own  genius  and  skill, 
was  marching  onward  in  the  pathway  of  renown  to  great  emoluments,  when  he 
was  suddenly  laid  in  the  grave.  He  died  on  the  24th  of  February,  1815,  at  the 
age  of  fifty  years.  Six  steam-boats  were  then  afloat  on  the  Hudson,  and  the 
honor  of  first  crossing  the  ocean  by  steam  power  was  just  within  his  grasp,  for 
he  was  building  a  vessel,  designed  for  a  voyage  to  St.  Petersburg,  in  Russia. 


HUGH    WILLIAMSON. 

ONE  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the  adopted  sons  of  North  Carolina,  both  for 
his  intellectual  acquirements,  and  his  varied  public  services,  was  Hugh 
Williamson,  a  native  of  Nottingham,  Pennsylvania,  where  he  was  born  on  the 
5th  of  December,  1735,  the  eldest  of  ten  children.  He  was  educated  at  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1757,  and  then  prepared 
himself  for  the  gospel  ministry.  He  was  licensed  to  preach,  but  ill  health  com- 
pelled him  to  abandon  that  vocation,  and  in  1760,  he  was  appointed  Professor 
of  Mathematics,  in  the  institution  where  he  was  educated.  He  resigned  his 
professorship  in  1764,  and  went  to  Edinburgh  to  study  the  science  of  medicine. 
He  pursued  the  same  studies,  for  awhile,  at  Utrecht;  and  in  1772,  he  returned 
to  Philadelphia,  and  commenced  the  successful  practice  of  his  profession.  He 
took  much  interest  in  the  subject  of  popular  education,  and  near  the  close  of 
1773,  he  sailed  from  Boston  for  England,  with  Dr.  Ewing,  to  solicit  aid  for  an 
academy  at  Newark,  in  Delaware.  The  vessel  in  which  they  sailed  conveyed 
the  first  intelligence  to  Europe  of  the  destruction  of  tea  in  Boston  Harbor.  As 
Dr.  Williamson  saw  the  occurrence,  he  was  summoned  before  the  Privy  Council, 
in  February,  1774,  to  give  information  on  the  subject.  He  gave  a  lucid  account 
of  the  public  feeling  in  America,  and  assured  the  Council  that  a  persistance  in 
enforcing  parliamentary  measures  offensive  to  the  colonists,  would  result  in 
civil  war.  Soon  after  thia  he  went  to  Holland  and  the  Low  Countries,  and  re- 
mained on  the  Continent  until  intelligence  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 


RICHARD   MONTGOMERY.  157 

by  the  Continental  Congress  reached  him,  when  he  sailed  for  America.  Off  the 
capes  of  the  Delaware  the  vessel  was  captured  by  a  British  cruiser,  but  Dr.  "Wil- 
liamson escaped  in  an  open  boat,  with  some  important  despatches. 

In  1777,  Dr.  Williamson  went  to  Charleston,  and  with  a  younger  brother 
engaged  in  mercantile  speculations.  To  avoid  capture,  he  ordered  his  vessel, 
which  he  had  laden  with  merchandise  for  Baltimore,  to  proceed  to  Edenton, 
North  Carolina,  where  he  disposed  of  the  cargo,  and  settled  as  a  practising 
physician.  The  following  year,  he  served  as  surgeon  under  Colonel  Richard 
Caswell,  and  was  at  the  head  of  the  medical  staff  of  that  officer  in  the  disastrous 
battle  at  Camden,  in  August,  1780.  He  was  permitted  to  attend  his  wounded 
countrymen  within  the  British  lines,  and  was  instrumental  in  relieving  much 
suffering.  He  resumed  his  profession,  at  Edenton,  when  peace  was  promised; 
and  in  1782,  he  represented  that  district  in  the  North  Carolina  legislature.  He 
was  elected  to  Congress,  in  1784,  where  he  represented  his  adopted  State  for 
three  years;  and  in  1787,  he  was  a  member  of  the  convention  that  framed  the 
Federal  Constitution.  That  instrument  was  not  regarded  with  favor,  in  North 
Carolina,  and  because  of  his  zealous  advocacy  of  it,  Dr.  "Williamson  lost  much 
of  his  popularity,  for  awhile.  The  cloud  soon  passed  away,  and  from  17  90  until 
1792,  he  represented  the  Edenton  district  in  the  Federal  Congress.  He  then 
retired  to  private  life,  and  devoted  himself  to  literary  pursuits,  making  the  city 
of  New  York,  (where  he  married  his  wife  in  1789),  his  place  of  residence.  His 
most  important  production  was  a  History  of  North  Carolina,  in  two  volumes, 
published  in  1812.  Two  years  afterward,  he  was  associated  with  Dewitt  Clinton 
in  establishing  the  Literary  and  Philosophical  Society  of  New  York ;  and  ho 
was  active  in  social  life  until  the  last.  Dr.  Williamson  died  suddenly,  while 
taking  an  evening  ride,  on  the  22d  of  May,  1819,  at  the  age  of  eighty-four 
years. 


RICHARD    MONTOOMERY. 

IN  September,  1759,  the  accomplished  General  Wolfe  perished  in  the  arms  of 
victory  on  the  Plains  of  Abraham,  at  Quebec,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty -two 
years.  Near  him,  when  he  fell,  was  a  handsome  young  soldier,  ten  years  his 
junior,  who,  a  little  more  than  sixteen  years  later,  was  the  commanding  general 
in  a  siege  of  the  same  city,  and  also  perished  in  the  midst  of  his  troops.  That 
young  soldier  was  Richard  Montgomery,  who  was  born  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  in 
1736,  and  entered  the  British  army  at  the  age  of  twenty  years.  After  the  con- 
quest of  Canada,  he  was  in  the  campaign  against  Havana,  under  General  Lyman ; 
and  at  the  peace  in  1763,  he  took  up  his  residence  in  New  York.  He  finally  left 
his  regiment,  returned  to  England,  and  made  unsuccessful  attempts  to  purchase 
a  majority.  He  sold  his  commission  in  1772,  came  to  America,  and  purchased  a 
beautiful  estate  on  the  Hudson,  in  Dutchess  county,  New  York.  He  soon  after- 
ward married  a  daughter  of  Robert  Livingston.  It  was  a  happy  union,  but 
those  dreams  of  long  years  of  domestic  peace  were  soon  disturbed  by  the  gather- 
ing tempest  of  the  Revolution.  Montgomery,  with  all  the  ardor  of  the  people 
of  his  birth-land,  espoused  the  patriot  cause,  joined  the  army  under  General 
Schuyler,  destined  for  the  invasion  of  Canada,  and  was  second  in  command,  in 
the  Autumn  of  1775,  bearing  the  commission  of  a  brigadier.  Illness  of  the  chief 
devolved  the  whole  duty  of  leadership  upon  Montgomery,  and  he  went  on  suc- 
cessfully until  St.  John,  Chambly,  and  Montreal,  were  in  his  power.  Congress 
gave  him  the  commission  of  major-general,  and  amid  the  snows  of  December,  ho 
pressed  forward  to  join  Arnold  in  an  assault  upon  Quebec.  For  three  weeks  ho 


153  JOSEPH  BRANT. 


besieged  that  city;  and  early  on  the  morning  of  the  31st  of  December,  while 
snow  was  fast  falling,  an  attempt  was  made  to  take  the  town  by  storm.  Mont- 
gomery was  killed  while  leading  a  division  along  the  shores  of  the  St.  Lawrence, 
beneath  the  precipitous  Cape  Diamond.  Arnold  was  also  wounded  at  another 
point  of  attack,  and  the  great  object  of  the  expedition  failed.  For  forty  years 
the  remains  of  Montgomery  rested  within  the  walls  of  Quebec.  At  the  request 
of  his  widow,  in  1818,  they  were  disinterred,  conveyed  to  New  York,  and  placed 
beneath  a  mural  monument,  erected  by  order  of  Congress,  on  the  external  wall 
of  the  front  of  St.  Paul's  church,  in  that  city.  Millions  of  people,  passing  along 
Broadway,  have  looked  upon  that  monument,  the  memorial  of  one  whose  praises 
were  spoken  in  Parliament  by  the  great  Chatham  and  Burke,  and  of  whom  Lord 
North  said,  "Curse  on  his  virtues;  they  have  undone  his  country."  He  was  in 
the  fortieth  year  of  his  age  when  he  fell.1 


JOSEPH    BRANT. 

THAYENDANEGEA,  one  of  the  most  renowned  of  the  warriors  of  the  Six 
JL  Nations  of  Indians  in  the  State  of  New  York,  was  a  Mohawk  of  the  pure 
native  blood.  His  father  was  an  Onondaga  chief;  and  Thayendanegea  (which 
signifies  a  bundle  of  sticks,  or  strength],  was  born  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio,  in 
1742.  There  his  father  died,  and  his  mother  returned  to  the  Mohawk  Valley 
with  her  two  children — this  son,  and  a  sister  who  became  a  concubine  of  Sir 
William  Johnson.  She  married  a  Mohawk,  whom  the  white  people  called  Barent, 
which,  in  abbreviation,  was  pronounced  Brant.  Sir  William  Johnson  placed  the 
boy  in  Dr.  Wheelock's  school,  at  Lebanon,  in  Connecticut,  where  he  was  named 
Joseph,  and  was  educated  for  the  Christian  ministry  among  his  own  people.  Sir 
William  employed  him  as  secretary  and  agent  in  public  affairs,  with  the  Indians, 
and  his  missionary  labors  never  extended  much  beyond  the  services  of  an  in- 
terpreter for  Mr.  Kirkland  and  others.  He  was  much  employed  in  that  business 
from  1762  to  1765.  Under  the  stronger  influence  of  Johnson  and  his  family, 
Brant  resisted  the  importunities  of  Mr.  Kirkland  to  remain  neutral  when  the 
war  of  the  Eevolution  approached,  and  he  took  an  active  part  with  the  British 
and  Tories.  In  1775,  he  left  the  Mohawk  Valley,  went  to  Canada,  and  finally 
to  England,  where  he  attracted  great  attention,  and  found  free  access  to  the 
nobility.  The  Earl  of  Warwick  caused  Romney,  the  eminent  painter,  to  make 
a  portrait  of  him,  for  his  collection,  from  which  the  prints  of  the  great  chief 
have  been  made.  Throughout  the  Revolution,  he  was  engaged  in  predatory 
warfare,  chiefly  on  the  border  settlements  of  New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  with 
the  Johnsons  and  Butlers ;  and  he  was  generally  known  as  Captain  Brant,  though 
he  held  a  colonel's  commission,  from  the  king.  Brant  again  visited  England,  in 
1783,  to  make  arrangements  for  the  benefit  of  the  Mohawks,  who  had  left  their 
ancient  country,  and  had  settled  on  the  Grand  River,  west  of  Lake  Ontario,  in 
Upper  Canada.  The  territory  given  them  by  the  government  embraced  six 
miles  on  both  sides  of  the  river  from  its  mouth  to  its  source.  There  Brant  was 
the  head  of  the  nation  until  his  death.  He  translated  a  part  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment into  the  Mohawk  language,  and  labored  much  for  the  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral welfare  of  his  ruined  people.  There  he  died  on  the  24th  of  November, 
1807,  at  the  age  of  sixty-five  years.  One  of  his  sons  was  a  British  officer  on  the 
Niagara  frontier,  in  the  war  of  1812 ;  and  a  daughter  married  W.  J.  Kerr,  Esq., 
of  Niagara,  in  1824. 

1.  The  inscription  on  his  monument  says  that  he  was  thirty-seven  years  old.    This  is  a  mistake. 


JOHN   HANCOCK. 


159 


JOHN    HANCOCK. 

EVERY  American  reader  is  familiar  with  the  name  and  the  bold,  clerkly  sig- 
nature of  the  president  of  the  Continental  Congress,  in  1776.1  With  a  hand 
as  firm  as  his  heart,  he  affixed  that  signature  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
saying,  "The  British  ministry  can  read  that  name  without  spectacles;  let  them 
double  their  reward."2  He  was  born  at  Braintree,  Massachusetts,  in  1737,  and 
at  an  early  age  was  left  to  the  care  of  a  paternal  uncle,  a  wealthy  merchant  of 
Boston,  who  cherished  his  future  heir  with  great  affection.  At  a  proper  age, 
John  was  placed  in  Harvard  College,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1754,  when 
only  seventeen  years  old.  He  then  entered  his  uncle's  counting-room  as  clerk ; 
and  such  was  his  integrity  and  capacity,  that  in  1761,  he  was  sent  to  England 
on  a  business  mission.  There  he  saw  the  coronation  of  George  the  Third,  and 


1.  The  fac-simile  above  given  is  a  third  smaller  than  the  original.    It  was  reduced  to  accommodate  it 
to  the  page. 

2.  This  was  in  reference  to  a  large  reward  that  had  heen  offered  for  the  apprehension  of  John  Hancock 
and  Samuel  Adams,  early  in  1775,  they  being  considered  arch-rebels. 


160  JOHN  HANCOCK. 


became  acquainted  with  some  of  the  leading  men  in  London.  "When  he  was 
twenty-six  years  of  age,  his  uncle  died,  and  left  him  a  large  fortune — the  largest 
in  New  England — and  he  became  not  only  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  Boston 
merchants,  but  a  leader  in  the  best  society  of  Massachusetts.  Fond  of  popularity 
and  the  excitements  of  public  life,  he  entered  the  arena  of  politics,  and  became 
a  leader  of  the  republican  party  in  New  England.  He  represented  Boston  in 
the  G-eneral  Assembly,  in  1766,  and  was  much  esteemed  by  those  noble  col- 
leagues, Otis,  Gushing,  and  the  Adamses.  He  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with 
those  patriots  in  resistance  to  the  obnoxious  measures  of  parliament,  which  suc- 
ceeded the  Stamp  Act;1  and  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  popular  outbreaks  in 
Boston  was  in  consequence  of  the  seizure  of  one  of  Mr.  Hancock's  vessels  by  the 
officers  of  the  customs.2  He  was  an  abettor  of  the  tea-riot,  in  1773;  and  in 
March  following,  he  boldly  delivered  the  annual  oration,  in  commemoration  of 
the  "Boston  massacre."3  The  same  year  he  was  chosen  president  of  the 
Provincial  Congress  of  Massachusetts,  and  also  a  delegate  to  the  Conti- 
nental Congress,  which  convened  in  Philadelphia,  in  September.  He  was 
a  member  of  that  body  the  following  year,  and  on  the  resignation  of  its 
president,  Peyton  Eandolph,  Mr.  Hancock  was  chosen  to  fill  that  exalted  seat. 
He  performed  his  arduous  duties  with  dignity  and  fidelity;  and  when,  in 
July,  1776,  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  adopted,  it  was  sent  forth  to 
the  world  with  the  names  of  only  President  Hancock  and  Secretary  Thomson 
attached.* 

Mr.  Hancock's  health  became  impaired,  in  1777,  by  the  ravages  of  gout,  a 
disease  hereditary  in  the  family,  and  he  resigned  his  seat  in  Congress,  and  re- 
turned home,  with  a  hope  and  desire  for  happiness  in  the  repose  of  domestic 
life.5  But  his  fellow-citizens  soon  sought  his  aid  in  the  preparation  of  a  constitu- 
tion for  the  new  republican  State  of  Massachusetts.  He  assisted  them  with 
cheerfulness,  and  he  was  honored  by  an  election  to  the  chief  magistracy  of 
the  commonwealth  under  its  new  organization.  He  held  the  office  five  con- 
secutive years,  and  then  declined  a  reelection.  In  1787,  he  was  again  elected 
governor,  and  held  that  position,  by  the  annual  choice  of  the  people,  until  his 
death,  which  occurred  on  the  8th  of  October,  1793,  at  the  age  of  fifty-six  years. 
From  the  first  appearance  of  Mr.  Hancock  in  public  life,  until  his  death,  a  period 
of  about  thirty  years,  no  man  was  more  popular  in  New  England.  He  did  not 
possess  extraordinary  talent,  but  was  endowed  with  great  tact,  a  clear  percep- 
tion of  human  character  and  the  secret  of  its  control,  and  made  a  liberal  and 
judicious  use  of  his  large  fortune  in  acts  of  benevolence,  and  for  public  good. 
He  was  beloved  by  all  his  cotemporaries  for  his  courtesy  and  kindness  of  heart, 
and  his  enemies  were  only  those  who  foolishly  allowed  political  differences  to 
engender  ill-will  in  their  own  hearts. 

1.  In  1767,  Mr.  Hancock  was  elected  a  member  of  the  executive  council,  but  the  governor  rejected 
him.    He  was  again  and  again  elected,  and  as  often  rejected.    At  last  the  governor,  who  knew  his 
character  well,  and  feared  his  popularity,  admitted  him  to  a  seat.     Previous  to  his  first  election  to  the 
council,  the  governor,  hoping  to  win  him  to  the  cause  of  the  crown,  presented  him  with  a  lieutenant's 
commission.    Mr.  Hancock  perceived  the  bribe  in  the  proffered  honor,  and  tore  up  the  commission  in 
the  presence  of  the  people. 

2.  His  sloop  Liberty  was  seized  by  the  officers  of  customs,  under  a  charge  of  concealing  contraband 
goods.     The  people  turned  out,  beat  the  officers,  burned  the  government  boat,  and  drove  the  officials  to 
the  fort  in  the  harbor,  for  safety. 

3.  See  notes  on  pages  69  and  87.   For  several  years  a  public  oration  was  pronounced  on  the  anniversary 
of  the  event  alluded  to. 

4.  The  other  signatures  were  attached  to  the  document  on  the  2d  of  August  following,  when  the  Dec- 
laration was  duly  engrossed  on  parchment. 

5.  When,  in  1778,  General  Sullivan  prepared  to  attack  the  British  on  Rhode  Island,  and  called  upon 
the  New  England  militia  for  aid,  Mr.  Hancock  took  the  field,  for  a  short  time,  as  commander  of  those 
of  his  own  State.     He  was  a  participator  in  the  stirring  events  near  Bristol  Ferry,  at  the  northern  end 
of  Rhode  Island,  in  August,  1778. 


HENRY  LAURENS.  161 


HENRY    LAURENS. 

THE  descendants  of  the  Huguenots,  or  French  Protestant  refugees,  who  fled 
JL  to  America  toward  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  were  all  faithful 
to  the  principles  of  their  ancestors  when  the  War  for  Independence  was  kindling, 
and  almost  to  a  man  were  found  on  the  side  of  the  republicans.  Of  these, 
Henry  Laurens,  of  South  Carolina,  was  one  of  the  most  active  and  uncompromis- 
ing patriots  of  that  period.  He  was  born  in  Charleston,  in  1724,  became  a  suc- 
cessful merchant,  and  in  1770,  retired  from  business  with  a  large  fortune.  He 
had  already  taken  part  in  the  political  movements  in  the  province,  and  when  he 
went  to  England,  in  1771,  for  the  pleasure  of  change,  he  there  heartily  espoused 
the  patriot  cause,  in  the  disputes  then  growing  warmer  and  warmer.  He  even 
justified  the  people  of  Boston,  in  the  destruction  of  the  tea,  in  1773,  for  he  per- 
sisted in  regarding  it  in  its  political  aspect  only ;  and  in  the  British  metropolis 
he  was  looked  upon  as  a  rebel,  though  he  had  not  yet  committed  an  overt  act 
of  rebellion.  Mr.  Laurens  returned  to  Charleston,  in  1774,  and  presided  over 
the  first  Provincial  Congress,  held  in  that  city  in  January,  1775.  "When  the 
Congress  appointed  a  council  of  safety  to  act  in  its  stead,  Mr.  Laurens  was  chosen 
president  of  that  body.  It  was  an  office  equivalent  to  that  of  governor,  and 
consequently  he  may  be  regarded  as  the  first  republican  chief  magistrate  of 
South  Carolina.  When  a  temporary  constitution  for  the  new  State  was  framed 
in  1776,  he  was  made  vice-president  under  it;  and  the  following  year  he  was 
elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Continental  Congress.  He  was  chosen  its  president,  in 
November,  1777,  but  resigned  the  office  in  December,  1778.  In  1779,  Congress 
appointed  him  minister  plenipotentiary  to  Holland,  to  negotiate  a  commercial 
treaty  with  that  power,  but  he  did  not  sail  for  Europe  until  the  Summer  of  1780. 
The  vessel  that  conveyed  him  was  captured  by  a  British  frigate.  Mr.  Laurens 
cast  his  papers  into  the  sea,  but  as  they  did  not  sink  immediately,  they  were 
recovered,  and  disclosed  the  fact  that  Holland  had  already  been  in  secret  nego- 
tiation with  the  revolted  colonies.  That  discovery  led  to  a  declaration  of  war 
by  Great  Britain  against  Holland.  Laurens  was  taken  to  London,  and  imprisoned 
in  the  Tower  about  fourteen  months,  under  a  charge  of  high  treason.  For  some 
time  he  was  not  allowed  the  solace  of  conversation,  books,  pen,  ink,  paper,  or 
the  receipt  of  letters.  That  rigor  was  abated,  yet  his  confinement  made  terrible 
inroads  upon  his  constitution.  At  length  public  sentiment  expressed  its  dis- 
pleasure because  of  his  treatment,  and  the  ministry,  fearing  retaliation  on  the 
part  of  the  Americans,  desired  an  excuse  to  release  him.  One  of  his  friends  was 
instructed  to  say,  that  he  should  be  pardoned,  if  ho  would  write  a  note  to  Lord 
North,  and  express  his  sorrow  for  what  he  had  done.  "  Pardon  1"  exclaimed 
Laurens  indignantly.  "  I  have  done  nothing  to  require  a  pardon,  and  I  will 
never  subscribe  to  my  own  infamy  and  the  dishonor  of  my  children."  He  could 
never  be  induced  to  make  the  least  concessions ;  and  finally,  when  public  clamor 
for  his  release  became  too  vehement  to  be  longer  disregarded,  the  ministry  had 
him  admitted  to  bail1  on  security  procured  by  themselves,  and  he  was  discharged 

1.  In  that  ceremony, -when  the  words  of  the  recognizance,  "Our  Sovereign  Lord  the  King,"  were 
read,  Mr.  Laurens  immediately  said,  "  Not  my  sovereign  1"  On  another  occasion,  when  he  was  requested 
to  write  to  his  son,  John,  then  on  a  mission  to  France,  and  advise  him  to  leave  that  country,  Mr.  Laurens 
replied,  ' '  My  son  is  of  age,  and  has  a  will  of  his  own  ;  if  I  should  write  to  him  in  the  terms  you  request, 
it  would  have  no  effect,  he  would  only  conclude  that  confinement  and  persuasion  had  softened  me.  I 
know  him  to  be  a  man  of  honor.  He  loves  me  dearly,  and  would  lay  down  his  life  to  save  mine  ;  hut  I 
am  sure  he  would  not  sacrifice  his  honor  to  save  mine,  and  I  applaud  him."  That  son  was  worthy  of  such 
a  father.  He  was  sent  to  France  to  solicit  a  loan.  He  was  assured  by  Vergennes,  the  French  minister, 
that  his  king  had  every  disposition  to  favor  the  Americans.  Young  Laurens  withdrew  to  the  opposite 
side  of  the  room,  and  said,  with  emphasis,  "  Favor,  sir  !  The  respect  which  I  owe  to  my  country  will 
not  admit  the  term.  Say  that  the  obligation  is  mutual,  and  I  cheerfully  subscribe  to  the  obligation. 
But  as  the  last  argument  I  shall  offer  to  your  excellency,  the  sword  which  I  now  wear  in  defence  of 


162  JAMES  OTIS. 


before  the  allotted  time  of  trial.  Lord  Shelburne  was  then  premier,  and  he 
solicited  Mr.  Laurens  to  remain  in  Europe,  and  assist  in  the  pending  negotiations 
for  peace.  Laurens  complied;  and  in  November,  1782,  he  signed  the  prelimin- 
ary treaty  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain.  Soon  after  that  event, 
he  returned  home,  suffering  much  from  the  effects  of  his  rigorous  confinement. 
His  constitution  was  shattered  beyond  recovery,  and  he  steadily  refused  the 
honors  of  official  'station  frequently  offered  him  by  his  grateful  countrymen.  His 
health  gradually  failed,  and  on  the  8th  of  December,  1792,  he  expired,  when 
almost  sixty-nine  years  of  age.  The  following  remarkable  injunction,  expressed 
in  his  Will,  was  literally  complied  with:  "I  solemnly  enjoin  it  on  my  son,  as  an 
indispensable  duty,  that  as  soon  as  he  conveniently  can  after  my  decease,  he 
cause  my  body  to  be  wrapped  in  twelve  yards  of  tow-cloth,  and  burnt  until  it 
be  entirely  consumed,  and  then,  collecting  my  bones,  deposit  them  wherever  he 
he  may  think  proper." 


JAMES    OTIS. 

t 

"  ATIS  was  a  flame  of  fire.  With  a  promptitude  of  classical  allusions,  a  depth 
\J  of  research,  a  rapid  summary  of  historical  events  and  dates,  a  profusion 
of  legal  authorities,  a  prophetic  glance  of  his  eyes  into  futurity,  and  a  rapid  tor- 
rent of  impetuous  eloquence,  he  hurried  away  all  before  him.  American  Inde- 
pendence was  then  and  there  born."  Such  was  the  expressed  estimate  of  the 
power  and  influence  of  James  Otis,  by  John  Adams,  when  writing  of  that  early 
patriot's  great  speech  against  Writs  of  Assistance,1  before  the  General  Court  of 
Massachusetts.  He  was  the  son  of  Colonel  James  Otis,  of  Barnstable,  and  was 
born  there  on  the  5th  of  February,  1725.  He  was  educated  at  Harvard  College, 
where  he  was  graduated  in  1743.  Choosing  the  law  for  a  profession,  he  studied 
it  under  the  eminent  Jeremy  Gridley,  and  commenced  its  practice  at  Plymouth 
when  he  was  twenty-one  years  of  age.  Two  years  afterward,  he  went  to  Boston 
to  reside,  where  his  talent  and  integrity  soon  raised  him  to  a  front  rank  in  his 
profession.  It  was  in  1761  that  he  made  the  powerful  speech  above  alluded  to, 
on  which  occasion  he  was  opposed  by  his  law-tutor,  Mr.  Gridley,  then  attorney- 
general  of  the  province.  "  Every  man  of  an  immense  crowded  assembly,"  wrote 
John  Adams,  "appeared  to  go  away,  as  I  did,  ready  to  take  up  arms  against 
Writs  of  Assistance."  The  following  year  Mr.  Otis  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the 
Massachusetts  General  Assembly,  and  he  became  the  head  and  front  of  opposi- 
tion to  aggressive  ministerial  measures,  in  New  England.  In  the  Colonial  Con- 
gress of  delegates  at  New  York,  in  1765,  gathered  inconsequence  of  the  passage 
of  the  Stamp  Act,  Mr.  Otis  was  an  efficient  member ;  and  the  same  year  ho 
wrote  and  published,  in  pamphlet  form,  a  powerful  vindication  of  the  rights  of 
the  colonies.  It  was  re-published  in  London,  and  awakened  the  ire  of  ministers 
to  such  a  degree  that  they  threatened  the  author  with  arrest  on  a  charge  of 

France,  as  well  as  my  own  country,  unless  the  succor  I  solicit  is  immediately  accorded,  I  may  be  com- 
pelled, within  a  short  time,  to  draw  against  France  as  a  British  subject.  I  must  now  inform  your  ex- 
cellency that  my  next  memorial  will  be  presented  to  his  majesty,  in  person."  This  bold  reply  had  great 
effect  upon  Vergennes,  for  he  most  dreaded  a  reconciliation  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain. 
True  to  his  promise,  Laurens  attended  at  the  audience  chamber  of  the  king,  the  next  day,  and  presented 
his  memorial,  in  person,  to  his  majesty.  It  was  handed  to  Count  Segur,  and  on  the  following  day  Laurens 
was  officially  informed  that  the  re.'inired  aid  should  be  given.  The  succor  came,  and  in  the  Autumn,  by 
the  assistance  of  French  funds,  and  French  soldiers  and  seamen,  Cornwallis  was  captured,  and  the  dealh 
blow  to  British  power  in  America  was  given.  That  noble  young  man  was  killed  in  a  skirmish  on  the 
banks  of  the  Combahee,  at  the  close  of  hostilities,  in  August.  1782,  when  he  was  only  twenty-nine  years 
of  age.  He  had  been  Washington's  aid,  and  that  chief  loved  him  as  a  child.  G;eene  wrote.  "  The  Stale 
will  feel  his  loss." 
1.  See  note  2,  page  122. 


JAMES   OTIS. 


163 


sedition.  For  several  years,  Mr.  Otis  held  the  office  of  judge  advocate.  Becom- 
ing disgusted  with  the  continually  developing  government  schemes  to  enslave 
the  colonies,  he  determined  to  dissolve  all  personal  connection  with  the  crown 
party,  and  resigned  that  lucrative  office,  in  1767. 

Mr.  Otis  was  sometimes  unnecessarily  caustic  in  the  use  of  his  tongue  and 
pen.  In  the  Summer  of  1769,  he  published  some  severe  strictures  upon  the 
conduct  of  the  commissioners  of  customs,  and  early  in  September,  he  had  a  per- 
sonal affray  with  one  of  them,  named  Robinson,  and  others.  Robinson  struck 
Otis  a  severe  blow  on  the  head,  with  a  bludgeon,  from  the  effects  of  which  ho 
never  recovered.  His  brain  was  injured  and  his  reason  was  dethroned.  A  jury, 
in  a  civil  suit  against  the  ruffian,  awarded  a  verdict  of  ten  thousand  dollars, 
damages.  Otis  had  lucid  intervals,  and  during  one  of  them,  he  magnanimously 
forgave  his  destroyer  when  he  craved  the  boon,  and  generously  refused  to  re- 
ceive a  dollar  of  the  sum  awarded  to  him.  For  many  years  afterward  the  patriot 
lived  on,  with  his  great  intellect  in  ruins,  a  comparatively  useless  man  and  a 
deep  grief  to  his  relatives.1  None  loved  him  more  devotedly,  or  grieved  more 

1.  The  following  anecdote  is  related  of  Mr.  Otis  as  illustrative  of  bis  ready  rise  of  Latin  even  during 
moments  of  mental  aberration.  Men  and  boys,  heartless  and  thoughtless,  would  sometimes  make  them- 
selves merry  at  his  expense  when  he  was  seen  in  the  streets  afflicted  with  lunacy.  On  one  occasion  ho 
was  passing  a  crockery  store,  when  a  young  man,  who  had  a  knowledge  of  Latin,  sprinkled  some  water 
upon  him  from  a  sprinkling-pot  with  which  he  was  wetting  the  floor  of  the  second  story,  at  the  same 
time  saying,  Pluit  tantum,  nexcio  quantum,  Sris  ne  tu  f  "  It  rains  so  much,  I  know  not  how  much.  Do 
you  know  ?"  Otis  immediately  picked  up  a  missile,  and,  hurling  it  through  the  window  of  the  crockery 


164  JAMES   CRAIK. 


bitterly,  than  his  gifted  sister,  Mercy  Warren,  and  to  her  hand  and  voice  his 
occasionally  turbulent  spirit  lent  a  quick  and  willing  obedience.  When,  at 
times,  the  cloud  was  lifted  from  his  reason,  he  talked  calmly  of  death,  and  often 
expressed  a  desire  to  die  by  a  stroke  of  lightning.  His  wish  was  gratified.  On 
the  23d  of  May,  1783,  he  stood  leaning  on  his  cane,  in  the  door  of  a  friend's 
house  at  Andover,  watching  the  sublime  spectacle  of  a  hovering  thunder-cloud, 
when  suddenly  a  bolt  leaped  from  it  like  a  swift  messenger  from  God  to  his  spirit, 
and  killed  him  instantly.1 

All  through  the  great  struggle  for  independence,  to  which  his  eloquence  had 
excited  his  countrymen,  James  Otis  was  like  a  blasted  pine  on  the  mountains — 
like  a  stranded  wreck  in  the  midst  of  the  billows.  It  was  just  as  the  sunlight 
of  peace  burst  upon  his  disenthralled  country,  that  his  spirit  departed  for  the 
realm  of  unclouded  intelligence. 


JAMES    CRAIK. 

OF  the  family  physician  of  the  great  Washington,  and  the  companion-in-arms 
of  that  beloved  Leader  in  his  earlier  military  career,  there  are  but  few  rec- 
ords left,  and  these  cluster  like  parasites  around  the  huge  proportions  of  the 
biography  of  the  Father  of  his  country.  Dr.  Craik  was  a  native  of  Scotland,  and 
settled  in  Virginia,  while  yet  quite  a  youth.  He  accompanied  lieutenant-colonel 
Washington  in  his  expedition  against  the  French  and  Indians  in  Western  Penn- 
sylvania, in  1754,  and  was  a  surgeon  in  one  of  the  provincial  corps,  under  Brad- 
dock,  the  following  year.  He  dressed  that  officer's  fatal  wounds  on  the  night 
of  the  battle  of  the  Monongahela,  and  stood  by  Colonel  Washington  when  he 
read  the  impressive  funeral  service  of  the  Church  of  England,  over  the  body  of 
the  fallen  commander.  Fifteen  years  afterward,  while  Dr.  Craik  was  exploring 
some  wild  lands  near  the  mouth  of  the  Great  Kenhawa,  he  met  a  venerable 
chief,  who  said,  that  in  the  battle  when  Braddock  was  killed,  he  fired  his  rifle 
at  Washington  fifteen  times,  but  could  not  hit  him !  His  young  warriors  did 
the  same,  with  a  like  result,  and  all  believed  that  the  Great  Spirit  specially  pro- 
tected the  young  hero. 

Dr.  Craik  served  in  his  professional  capacity  during  portions  of  the  War  for 
Independence ;  and  at  the  siege  of  Yorktown,  he  was  director-general  of  the 
hospital  there.  He  accompanied  Washington  to  the  death-bed  side  of  Mr.  Custis 
— one  of  the  children  of  Mrs.  Washington ;  and  at  the  close  of  the  war,  he  settled 
near  Mount  Vernon,  by  invitation  of  the  Chief,  and  became  his  family  physi- 
cian. When  the  good  Patriot  was  suddenly  prostrated  by  the  disease  which 
terminated  his  life,  a  servant  was  dispatched,  in  great  haste,  for  Dr.  Craik.  With 
all  the  attention  of  a  dear  friend,  and  the  skill  of  a  good  physician,  he  watched 
his  noble  patient  until  the  last.  He  lived  to  take  an  interest  in  another  war  for 
independence,  but  died  in  the  midst  of  its  tumult.  It  was  on  the  6th  day  of 
February,  1814,  when  the  spirit  of  the  family  physician  of  Washington  left  earth 
for  the  world  of  light  and  immortality.  He  was  then  in  the  eighty-fourth  year 
of  his  age. 

store,  it  smashing  everything  in  its  way,  exclaimed,  Fregi  tot,  nestio  quot,  Scis  ne  tuf    "I  have  broken 
so  many,  I  know  not  how  many.    Do  you  know?" 

1.  Honorable  Thomas  Dawes  wrote  a  commemorative  ode.  in  which  he  thus  referred  to  the  manner  of 
Otis'  death : 

"  Hark  !  the  deep  thunders  echo  'round  the  skies  I 
On  wings  of  flame  the  eternal  errand  flies  ; 
One  chosen,  charitable  bolt  is  sped. 
And  Otis  mingles  with  the  glorious  dead." 


TIMOTHY   PICKERING.  165 


TIMOTHY    PICKE11ING-. 

'  Through  Salem  strait,  without  delay, 
The  bold  battalion  took  its  way  ; 
Marched  o'er  a  bridge,  in  open  sight 
Of  several  Yankees  armed  for  fight ; 
Then,  without  loss  of  time  or  men, 
Veer'd  'round  for  Boston,  back  again, 
And  found  so  well  their  projects  thrive, 
That  every  soul  got  back  alive." 

wrote  Trumbull,  in  his  McFingal,1  concerning  an  event  at  Marblehead, 
1  in  Massachusetts,  in  which  Colonel  Timothy  Pickering,  one  of  the  most 
useful  of  the  military  and  civil  officers  of  the  Republic  in  its  earlier  days,  was 
chief  actor.  Pickering  was  a  native  of  the  ancient  town  of  Salem,  in  Essex 
county,  Massachusetts,  where  he  was  born  on  the  17th  of  July,  1745.  He  en- 
tered Harvard  College,  as  a  student,  at  the  age  of  fourteen  years,  and  was  grad- 
uated at  nineteen,  with  the  usual  college  honors.  He  studied  law,  and  entered 
upon  its  practice  at  the  moment  when  the  tempest  of  popular  indignation,  raised 
by  the  Stamp  Act,  was  sweeping  over  the  land.  He  entered  the  arena  of  polit- 
ical discussion,  and  was  at  once  the  avowed  champion  of  popular  freedom.  For 
several  years  he  was  register  of  Salem,  and  colonel  of  the  Essex  militia ;  and 
when,  in  1774,  the  people  of  Salem  resolved  to  address  General  Gage  on  the 
subject  of  the  Boston  Port-Bill,  Colonel  Pickering  was  chosen  to  prepare  it,  and 
present  it  in  person  to  the  governor.2  A  few  months  afterward,  he  had  the 
honor  of  making  the  first  resistance  to  the  invasion  of  the  province  by  British 
troops.  He  was  informed  that  a  body  of  them  had  landed  at  Marblehead,  for 
the  purpose  of  marching  through  Salem  to  seize  some  American  stores  in  the 
interior.  It  was  Sunday,  the  25th  of  February,  1775.  The  ministers  of  the 
churches  dismissed  their  congregations.  The  men  gathered  at  the  call  of  Colonel 
Pickering,  and  when  the  invaders  approached  the  Salem  drawbridge,  these 
minute-men  boldly  confronted  them.  Perceiving  prudence  to  be  the  better  part 
of  valor,  the  British  marched  back  to  Marblehead,  and  returned  to  Boston.  This 
was  the  event  alluded  to  by  the  poet. 

Early  in  the  Spring  of  1775,  Colonel  Pickering  was  chosen  judge  of  the  Court 
of  Common  Pleas,  of  Essex;  and  when,  on  the  19th  of  April,  intelligence  of  the 
skirmish  at  Lexington  reached  him,  he  hastened,  at  the  head  of  his  regiment,  to 
intercept  the  invaders.  After  that  he  exercised  the  duties  of  his  judgeship,  until 
the  Autumn  of  1776,  when,  at  the  head  of  seven  hundred  Essex  men,  he  joined 
the  army  under  Washington,  near  New  York,  and  was  with  him  in  his  memorable 
retreat  across  the  Jerseys,  toward  the  close  of  that  year.  He  continued  with 
the  chief  until  the  Winter  of  l777-'8,  when  he  was  appointed,  by  Congress,  a 
member  of  the  Board  of  War.  In  the  battles  at  Brandy  wine  and  Germantown, 
he  had  acted  as  adjutant-general,  and  his  military  skill  and  experience,  com- 
mended him  highly  to  his  commander  and  the  national  council.  In  1780,  he 
succeeded  General  Greene  in  the  important  office  of  quartermaster-general.  He 
performed  the  duties  of  that  office  efficiently  until  the  close  of  the  war,  and  then 
he  made  Philadelphia  his  residence.  Difficulties  soon  afterward  occurred  among 
the  Connecticut  and  Pennsylvania  people,  in  the  Wyoming  Valley,  and  Mr. 
Pickering  was  appointed  by  his  adopted  State,  to  attempt  a  settlement  of  the 

1.  See  sketch  of  John  Trumbull,  the  poet. 

2.  For  the  purpose  of  punishing  the  people  of  Boston  for  the  destruction  of  the  cargoes  of  tea,  in  1773, 
pirliament  decreed  that  the  port  of  that  city  should  be  closed— that  no  vessels  should  enter  or  clear 
there,  and  that  the  Custom  House  and  other  public  offices  should  be  removed  to  Salem.     The  act  took 
eifoct  on  the  1st  of  June,  1774.     Great  distress  ensued.     The  people  of  Marblehead  gave  the  Bostonians 
free  use  of  their  docks,  and  in  the  Address  alluded  to  in  the  text,  the  people  of  Salem  refused  to  receive 
any  favors  at  the  expense  of  their  neighbors  of  Boston. 


166  WILLIAM   GORDON. 


troubles.  There  he  suffered  personal  ill-treatment,  his  life  was  endangered,  and 
he  finally  returned  to  Philadelphia.  In  1790,  he  was  a  member  of  the  conven- 
tion to  revise  the  constitution  of  Pennsylvania;  and  the  following  year  Wash- 
ington appointed  him  Postmaster-general,  as  successor  to  Mr.  Osgood.  He  con- 
tinued in  that  office  until  the  resignation  of  General  Knox,  almost  four  years 
afterward,  when  he  succeeded  that  officer  as  Secretary  of  War.  The  same  year 
he  was  appointed  Secretary  of  State,  and  held  the  position  until  1800,  when  Mr. 
Adams  removed  him  for  political  causes.  Mr.  Pickering  was  then  fifty-five  years 
of  age,  poor  in  purse,  but  rich  in  integrity.  He  built  a  log  cabin  for  his  family 
on  some  of  his  wild  land  in  Pennsylvania,  and  commenced  the  arduous  task  of 
clearing  it  for  cultivation.  Generous  friends  purchased  the  tract  at  a  liberal 
price,  and  he  returned  to  his  native  State,  out  of  debt  and  possessing  a  moderate 
competence.  The  legislature  of  Massachusetts  chose  him  to  represent  that  State 
in  the  United  States  Senate,  in  1803;  and,  in  1805,  he  was  reflected  for  six 
years.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Board  of  War,  of  Massachusetts,  in  1812,  and, 
in  1814,  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  United  States  House  of  Representatives. 
Old  age  now  began  to  demand  repose,  and  he  retired  from  public  life,  in  1817. 
Ho  was  permitted  to  live  about  twelve  years  longer ;  and  on  the  29th  of  January, 
1829,  he  died  at  Salem,  when  almost  eighty-four  years  of  age. 


WILLIAM    OORDON. 

TVHE  most  faithful  and  Impartial  History  of  the  American  Revolution,  by  a 
1  cotemporary  author,  was  written  by  William  Gordon,  an  English  independ- 
ent clergyman,  who  was  in  America  during  the  struggle  of  the  colonists  for 
civil  and  political  freedom.  He  was  born  in  Hertfordshire,  England,  about  the 
year  1740,  and  at  an  early  age  was  pastor  of  an  Independent  congregation  at 
Ipswich,  where  his  faithfulness  in  reproving  Sabbath-breakers,  made  him  many 
enemies,  and  gave  him  an  uneasy  place.  He  became  successor  to  Dr.  Jennings, 
as  pastor  of  a  church  at  Wapping,  and  was  so  much  beloved,  that  he  might  have 
passed  his  life  pleasantly  there.  But  he  had  long  yearned  to  make  America  his 
home,  and,  in  1770,  he  sailed  for  Boston.  For  about  a  year  he  preached  in  one 
of  the  churches  at  Roxbury;  and  in  July,  1772,  he  was  chosen  its  pastor.  He 
was  a  republican,  and  soon  became  identified  with  the  popular  party,  in  Massa- 
chusetts, in  opposition  to  the  crown.  When  the  Provincial  Congress  of  that 
colony  was  formed,  in  1774,  Dr.  Gordon  was  chosen  its  chaplain,  and  lie  con- 
tinued a  faithful  adherent  to  the  patriot  cause,  After  the  promulgation  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  in  1776,  he  conceived  the  idea  of  writing  a  history 
of  the  progressing  struggle,  and  he  kept  full  notes  during  the  entire  war.  When 
it  was  ended,  he  was  allowed  free  access  to  public  records,  and  to  the  papers 
of  Washington,  Greene,  Gates,  and  other  distinguished  officers.  In  1786.  he 
returned  to  his  native  country,  completed  his  history,  and  published  it  in  Lon- 
don, in  1788.  It  was  soon  afterward  re-published  in  New  York,  in  three  volumes. 
The  work  is  now  very  scarce.  The  author  received  about  fifteen  hundred 
dollars  for  his  service  in  its  preparation.  In  1793,  he  was  settled  as  a  pastor  at 
St.  Neots,  in  Huntingdonshire,  but  his  unpopularity  as  a  preacher,  on  account 
of  evidently  failing  intellect,  caused  his  friends  to  persuade  him  to  resign.  He 
afterward  made  his  residence  at  Ipswich,  where  he  preached  a  few  occasional 
sermons.  Soon  his  memory  became  a  blank,  he  sunk  into  imbecility,  and  thus 
remained,  until  his  death,  on  the  19th  of  October,  1807,  when  about  seventy- 
seven  years  of  age. 


DAVID  KAMSAY. 


167 


DAVID    RAMSAY. 

THE  authors  of  our  country  are  indebted  to  Dr.  David  Ramsay,  of  South 
Carolina,  one  of  the  earliest  historians  of  the  War  for  Independence,  for  the 
first  suggestions  and  efforts  in  relation  to  a  copyright  law.1  He  was  born  of 
Irish  parents,  in  Lancaster  county,  Pennsylvania,  on  the  2d  of  April,  1749,  and 
at  a  suitable  age  was  placed  in  the  College  at  Princeton,  New  Jersey.  There 
he  was  graduated  in  1765,  and  after  performing  the  duties  of  tutor  in  a  private 
family  in  Maryland  for  about  two  years,  he  commenced  the  study  of  medicine, 
in  Philadelphia.  In  1772,  he  entered  upon  its  practice  there,  but,  at  the  solicit- 
ation of  friends,  he  made  the  city  of  Charleston  his  residence,  the  following  year. 
There  he  soon  took  a  front  rank  as  a  physician  and  scholar,  and  being  an  ardent 
patriot,  he  became  a  political  leader  by  the  side  of  Gadsden,  Laurens,  and  others. 
His  pen  and  tongue  were  ever  busy  in  the  good  cause ;  and  he  also  attended 

1.  Soon  after  the  assembling  of  the  first  Federal  Congress,  under  the  new  Constitution,  in  1789,  Dr. 
Ramsay  sent  in  a  petition,  asking  for  the  passage  of  a  law  for  securing  to  him  and  his  heirs  the  exclusive 
right  to  vend  and  dispose  of  his  books,  respectively  entitled,  The  History  of  the  Revolution  in  South 
Carolina^  and  A  History  of  the  American  Revolution.  A  bill  for  that  purpose  was  framed  and  discussed. 
Finally,  in  August,  it  was  "postponed  until  the  next  Congress."  A  similar  bill  was  introduced  in 
January,  1790,  and  on  the  30th  of  April  following,  the  first  copyright  law  recorded  on  the  statute  books 
of  Congress,  was  passed. 


168  ROGER   SHERMAN. 


the  republican  army  ag  a  surgeon  much  of  the  time  until  after  the  siege  of 
Savannah,  in  which  he  participated. 

Dr.  Ramsay  was  an  efficient  member  of  the  Council  of  Safety,  and  also  of  the 
Legislative  Assembly  of  South  Carolina,  and  became  a  distinguished  object  of 
British  and  Tory  hatred.  He  was  in  Charleston  during  the  memorable  siege  in 
1780 ;  and  when  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  British,  he  was  made  a  captive,  and 
with  many  other  eminent  citizens,  suffered  banishment  to,  and  imprisonment  at, 
St.  Augustine,  in  Florida.  After  an  absence  of  eleven  months,  he  returned, 
resumed  his  seat  in  the  legislature  at  Jacksonborough,  in  the  early  part  of  1182, 
and  therein,  after  all  his  sufferings,  he  was  one  of  the  most  earnest  advocates 
of  leniency  toward  the  Tories.  He  was  elected  a  member  of  Congress  that  same 
year,  and  continued  to  represent  his  adopted  State,  in  that  body,  until  after  the 
close  of  the  war.  He  was  again  elected  to  Congress,  in  1785,  and  in  November, 
1786,  he  was  chosen  its  president,  pro  tempore,  during  the  protracted  absence  of 
President  Hancock.  His  first  historical  work,  mentioned  in  his  petition  referred 
to  in  the  note  on  the  preceding  page,  was  published  in  1785,  and  his  History  of 
the  American  Revolution  was  issued  in  1790.  He  now  declined  all  official  stations 
and  honors,  and  devoted  himself  to  his  profession,  and  to  literary  pursuits.  He 
wrote  a  life  of  Washington,  and  published  it  in  1801 ;  and  in  1808,  he  published 
a  History  of  South  Carolina.1  He  then  wrote  a  History  of  the  United  States ; 
and  he  continued  the  employment  of  all  of  his  leisure  hours  in  the  preparation 
of  a  series  of  historical  works,  intended  to  illustrate  the  state  of  society,  literature, 
religion,  and  form  of  government  of  the  United  States  of  America,  by  a  general 
historical  view  of  the  world.  These  he  did  not  live  to  complete,  according  to 
his  original  intention,  yet  they  were  sufficiently  perfect  to  warrant  their  pub- 
lication, in  twelve  octavo  volumes,  in  1819.  His  History  of  the  United  States 
was  brought  down  to  the  treaty  of  Ghent,  in  1814,  by  the  reverend  Samuel 
Stanhope  Smith,  and  other  literary  gentlemen,  and  published  in  three  octavo 
volumes,  in  1817.  In  the  midst  of  his  useful  and  unwearied  labors,2  literary 
and  professional,  Dr.  Ramsay  was  snatched  from  earth.  He  was  shot  by  a 
maniac,  near  his  residence,  and  on  the  8th  of  May,  1815,  his  labors  and  his 
mortal  life  closed  forever,  when  he  was  little  more  than  sixty-six  years  of  age. 


ROGER    SHERMAN. 

IT  is  said  that  "  Love  laughs  at  locksmiths."  So  true  Genius  laughs  at  im- 
pediments, and  gathers  strength  for  conquests  in  proportion  to  the  severity 
of  its  conflicts.  The  life  of  Roger  Sherman,  a  humble  shoe-maker,  illustrates 
the  fact.  He  was  born  in  Newton,  Massachusetts,  on  the  19th  of  April,  1722. 
While  Roger  was  an  infant,  his  parents  removed  to  Stonington,  where  they 
resided  until  the  death  of  his  father,  in  1741.  Roger  was  then  nineteen  years 
of  age.  He  had  been  apprenticed  to  a  shoemaker,  but  now  the  necessities  of 
his  mother  required  him  to  take  charge  of  a  small  farm  that  her  husband  had 
left.  They  sold  the  estate  in  1744,  and  went  to  reside  in  New  Milford,  Connec- 
ticut, where  Roger's  elder  brother  had  married  and  settled.  The  journey  was 
performed  on  foot  by  Roger,  and  he  carried  his  "  kit "  of  shoemaker's  tools,  on 
his  back.  There  he  worked  industriously  at  his  trade,  and  at  the  same  time  he 
applied  himself  assiduously  to  study,  for  his  early  education  was  exceedingly 

1.  This  was  an  extension  of  a  work,  published  in  1796,  entitled,  "  A  sketch  of  the  soil,  climate,  weather 
and  diseases  of  South  Carolina." 

2.  Dr.  Ramsay  seldom  slept  more  than  four  hours  of  the  twenty-four,  each  day. 


EICHAED   PETERS.  169 


limited.  He  learned  rapidly,  for  his  mind  was  quick,  comprehensive,  and  logical, 
and  at  his  bench  he  acquired  a  vast  amount  of  knowledge  from  books.1  After 
awhile,  he  became  a  partner  of  his  brother,  in  mercantile  business,  and  employed 
his  now  more  numerous  leisure  hours  in  the  study  of  the  law,  but  without  a 
tutor  or  guide.  He  soon  became  proficient  in  the  requisite  knowledge,  and  at 
the  close  of  1754,  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar.  His  talents  at  once  drew  public 
attention  toward  him,  and  in  1755,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  General  As- 
sembly of  Connecticut.  He  was  appointed  a  justice  of  the  peace  the  same  year ; 
and  after  a  law-practice  of  about  five  years,  he  received  the  appointment  of 
judge  of  the  court  for  Litchfield  county.  He  made  his  residence  in  JSTew  Haven, 
in  1761,  where  he  received  the  same  officicil  honors  and  emoluments.  He  was 
also  chosen  treasurer  of  Yale  College  ;  and  that  institution  conferred  upon  him 
the  honorary  degree  of  Master  of  Arts.  In  1766,  he  was  elected  to  the  State 
Senate,  and  he  fearlessly  took  part  with  the  people  in  their  opposition  to  the 
Stamp  Act.  He  was  a  leading  patriot  in  Connecticut,  until  the  commencement 
of  the  Revolution ;  and  all  through  that  struggle  he  was  ever  at  his  post  of  duty, 
for  he  regarded  eternal  vigilance  as  the  price  of  liberty.  He  was  elected  a 
delegate  for  Connecticut  in  the  first  Continental  Congress,  in  1774,  and  he  held 
a  seat  there  during  a  greater  portion  of  the  war.  He  advocated  independence, 
and  signed  the  great  Declaration.  In  1783,  he  assisted  in  the  revision  of  tho 
laws  of  Connecticut,  and  he  was  a  representative  of  that  State  in  the  convention 
that  framed  the  Federal  Constitution.  In  his  State  convention  called  to  act 
upon  it,  he  ably  advocated  its  ratification,  and  for  two  years  after  the  organiza- 
tion of  our  present  government,  he  represented  Connecticut  in  the  Federal 
Congress.  He  was  then  promoted  to  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
and  occupied  that  honorable  position  at  the  time  of  his  death,  which  occurred 
on  the  23d  of  July,  1793,  when  in  the  seventy-third  year  of  his  age.  He  then 
held  the  office  of  mayor  of  New  Haven,  having  been  the  first  chosen  to  that 
post  of  duty,  after  the  borough  was  organized  as  a  city. 


RICHARD    PKTERS. 

THE  first  Secretary  of  War,  of  the  United  States,  was  Richard  Peters,  an  em- 
inent jurist  and  agriculturist  of  Pennsylvania.  He  was  born  near  Phila- 
delphia, on  the  22d  of  August,  1744,  and  was  educated  at  the  college  in  that 
city,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1764.  He  had  acquired  a  thorough  knowledge 
of  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages,  and  spoke  the  French  and  German  fluently. 
He  chose  the  profession  of  law  as  a  pursuit,  and  his  knowledge  of  the  German 
language  was  of  essential  service  to  him  in  the  management  of  property  cases 
in  the  interior  of  Pennsylvania.  He  was  distinguished  for  wit  and  humor,  and 
when  he  accompanied  a  delegation  to  confer  with  some  of  the  Six  Nations  of 
Indians,  his  vivacity  so  pleased  the  children  of  the  forest,  that  he  was  formally 
adopted  as  a  son,  by  the  Senecas.  At  the  opening  of  the  Revolution  he  appeared 
in  the  field  as  captain  of  a  company  of  volunteers;  and  when,  in  June,  1776,  a 
Board  of  War  was  appointed  by  Congress,  Mr.  Peters  was  chosen  its  Secretary, 
and  thus  became  the  first  incumbent  of  that  office,  now  one  of  the  cabinet 
bureaus.  He  held  that  position  until  1781,  and  performed  the  duties  of  his  sta- 

1.  He  always  had  an  open  book  by  his  side,  on  the  bench,  and  read  at  intervals,  when  his  eyes  were 
not  required  upon  his  work.  He  thus  acquired  a  fair  knowledge  of  mathematics,  and  before  he  was 
twenty -one  years  of  age  he  made  astronomical  calculations  for  an  Almanac  published  in  New  York. 

8 


170  EDMUND   RANDOLPH. 

tion  with  great  ability.1  He  was  succeeded  by  General  Lincoln,  and  retired 
with  the  expressed  thanks  of  Congress.  IIo  was  then  elected  a  member  of  that 
body,  and  was  a  representative  of  his  State  therein  for  several  years.  On  the 
organization  of  the  Federal  Government,  in  1789,  Mr.  Peters  declined  a  fiscal 
office  tendered  to  him  by  "Washington,  but  accepted  that  of  judge  of  the  United 
States  District  Court  of  Pennsylvania.  He  bore  the  ermine  with  great  honor  to 
himself  and  country,  for  thirty-six  years,  and  was  always  zealous  in  the  promo- 
tion of  the  material  interests  of  his  State.  In  the  construction  of  public  works 
of  utility  he  was  always  foremost ;  and  to  him  the  country  is  indebted  for  the 
use  of  gypsum  in  agriculture,  and  the  introduction  of  clover.  The  subject  of 
farming  occupied  much  of  his  attention,  and  he  was  one  of  the  founders,  and  for 
a  long  time  president  of  the  Philadelphia  Agricultural  Socictjr.  Judge  Peters 
died  at  Blockley,  near  Philadelphia,  on  the  21st  of  August,  1828,  at  the  age  of 
eighty -four  years. 


EDMUND    RANDOLPH. 

4  MONG  the  most  important  members  of  the  convention  which  framed  the 
i\  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  was  Edmund  Eandolph,  the  only  son  of 
John  Randolph,  attorney-general  of  Virginia.  Of  his  birth  and  youthful  .career 
History  bears  no  record.  He  was  quite  a  young  man  when  the  Revolution 
commenced,  and  was  one  of  "Washington's  aids,  at  Cambridge,  in  1775.  He  left 
the  army  in  November  following,  and  returned  to  Virginia,  on  account  of  the 
death  of  his  relative,  Peyton  Randolph,  president  of  the  Continental  Congress. 
Four  years  later  he  was  elected  a  member  of  that  body,  and  represented  his 
native  State  there  until  March,  1782.  He  succeeded  Patrick  Henry  as  gov- 
ernor of  Virginia,  in  1786,  and  it  was  chiefly  through  his  agency  that  Washing- 
ton was  persuaded  to  represent  that  State  in  the  Federal  Convention,  in  1787. 
Randolph  was  very  active  in  that  convention,  but,  like  Patrick  Henry,  he  was 
so  jealous  of  State  Rights,  that  he  declined  to  affix  his  name  to  the  Constitution, 
desiring  to  be  free  to  act  upon  it  afterward,  as  his  judgment  or  the  opinions  of 
his  constituents  might  dictate.2  "When  the  time  came  to  act,  his  desire  for  union 
overcame  his  narrower  scruples ;  and  in  the  Virginia  State  Convention  he  elo- 
quently advocated  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution.  "Washington  made 
him  the  first  attorney-general  of  the  United  States,  under  that  compact ;  and  in 
1794,  Randolph  succeeded  Mr.  Jefferson  as  Secretary  of  State.  He  resigned 
that  office  in  August,  1795,  and  turned  his  attention  to  his  embarrassed  private 
affairs.  His  resignation  was  in  consequence  of  some  misunderstanding  with  the 
administration;  and  in  the  Autumn  of  that  year  he  published  a  Vindication. 
He  then  withdrew  from  public  life,  and  never  again  entered  the  arena.  He  died 
in  Frederick  county,  Virginia,  on  the  12th  of  September,  1813. 

1.  Next  to  Robert  Morris,  Mr.  Peters  was  one  of  the  most  efficient  men  of  the  Revolution,  in  providing 
the  "  ways  and  means  "  of  carrying  on  the  war.     In  the  Summer  of  1781,  Washington  prepared  to  attack 
the  British  in  New  York,  and  was  expecting  the  aid  of  Count  De  Grasf-e,  with  his  squadron  of  French 
ships  of  war.    He  received  notice  that  De  Grasse's  aid  could  not  be  given.     Washington  was  greatly 
disappointed,  but  instantly  he  conceived  the  expedition  to  Virginia,  which   resulted  in  the  capture  of 
Cornwallis.    Peters  and  Morris  were  then  both  in  Washington's  camp,  on  the  Hudson.     At  the  moment 
when  he  conceived  the  Virginia  expedition,  he  turned  to  Peters,  and  said,  "  What  can  you  do  for  me?" 

With  money,  everything— without  it,  nothing,"  Peters  replied,  at  the  same  time  casting  an  anxious 
look  toward  Morris,  the  great  financier.  "Let  me  know  the  sum  you  desire,"  said  Morris.  Before 
noon  Washington  had  completed  his  plans  and  estimates.  Morris  promised  the  money,  and  raised  it 
upon  his  individual  security. 

2.  He  endeavored  to  procure  a  vote  in  the  convention,  authorizing  amendments  to  be  submitted  by  the 
State  conventions,  and  to  be  finally  decided  on  by  another  general  convention.    This  proposition  was 
rejected. 


JOHN  JAY. 


171 


JOHN    JAY. 

A  MONO-  the  many  thousands  of  the  Huguenots  of  France  who  fled  to  England 
j\.  and  America  toward  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  to  escape  fiery 
persecutions,  was  Augustus  Jay,  a  young  merchant.  He  landed  at  Charleston, 
in  South  Carolina,  but  soon  proceeded  northward,  and  settled  in  the  city  of  New 
York.  There  he  married  the  daughter  of  Balthazar  Bayard,  one  of  the  refugees 
who  cnme  with  the  New  Rochelle  colony.1  These  were  the  grand-parents  of 
John  Jay,  the  venerated  American  patriot  and  statesman.  He  was  born  in  the 
city  of  New  York,  on  the  12th  of  December,  1745.  At  eight  years  of  age  he 
was  placed  in  a  boarding  school  at  New  Eochelle,  and  at  fourteen  he  entered 
King's  (now  Columbia)  College,  as  a  student.  He  was  an  apt  scholar,  and  gave 
early  promises  of  his  subsequent  brilliant  career.  He  was  graduated  in  1764, 
bearing  the  highest  honors  of  the  college,  and  commenced  the  study  of  law 
under  Benjamin  Kissam.  He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1768,  and  ascended 
rapidly  to  eminence  in  his  profession.  In  1774,  he  was  married  to  the  daughter 
of  that  sturdy  patriot,  William  Livingston  (afterward  governor  of  New  Jersey), 
and  entered  the  political  field,  with  great  ardor,  as  the  champion  of  popular 

1.  See  sketch  of  Jacob  Leisler. 


172  JOHN   JAY. 


rights.  Ho  was  one  of  the  most  prominent  members  of  the  New  York  committee 
of  correspondence,  in  the  Spring  of  1774,  and  in  September  following,  he  took  a 
seat  in  the  first  Continental  Congress.  He  was  the  youngest  member  of  that 
body,  being  less  than  twenty-nine  years  of  age,  and  he  was  the  latest  survivor. 
His  genius  as  a  statesman  was  exhibited  in  the  Address  to  the  People  of  Great 
Britain,  put  forth  by  Congress.  Jefferson,  ignorant  of  its  authorship,  said,  "  It 
is  the  production  of  the  finest  pen  in  America."  From  that  time  Mr.  Jay  was 
identified  with  most  of  the  important  civil  measures  in  his  native  State ;  and  he 
also  performed  much  duty  in  the  Continental  Congress,  until  the  Summer  of 
1776,  when  all  his  energies  were  devoted  to  public  business  in  New  York. 
"With  tongue,  pen,  and  hand,  ho  was  indefatigable ;  and  as  a  member  of  the 
convention  at  Kingston,  in  the  Spring  of  1777,  he  was  chosen  to  draft  a  State 
Constitution.  Under  that  instrument  he  was  appointed  chief  justice  of  New 
York,  and  held  his  first  term  at  Kingston,  in  September,  1777.  He  was  an 
efficient  member  of  the  Council  of  Safety,  appointed  to  act  in  place  of  the  legis- 
lature, when  not  in  session.  In  the  Autumn  of  1778,  ho  was  again  elected  to 
Congress,  and  three  days  after  taking  his  seat  there,  ho  was  chosen  its  president. 
He  filled  the  chair  with  dignity  and  vigor,  until  September,  1779,  when  he  was 
appointed  minister  to  Spain  to  obtain  the  acknowledgment  of  the. independence 
of  the  United  States,  to  form  a  treaty  of  alliance,  and  to  borrow  money.  We 
cannot  even  refer  to  his  numerous  and  efficient  diplomatic  services  from  that 
time  until  1782,  when  he  was  appointed  one  of  the  commissioners  for  negotiating 
a  peace  with  Great  Britain.  In  all  of  them  he  exhibited  consummate  skill  and 
statesmanship ;  and  to  his  vigilance  we  are  indebted  for  advantages  obtained  by 
the  treaty,  of  which  the  artful  French  minister  attempted  to  deprive  us.  Ho 
signed  the  preliminary  treaty,  in  November,  1782,  with  Adams,  Franklin,  and 
Laurens,  and  the  following  year  he  affixed  his  signature  to  the  definitive 
treaty. 

Mr.  Jay  returned  to  the  United  States,  in  July,  1784,  and  immediately  entered 
upon  the  duties  of  chief  of  the  foreign  department  of  the  government,  to  which 
he  was  chosen  before  his  arrival.  He  occupied  that  station  until  the  new  or- 
ganization of  government  under  the  Federal  Constitution,  when  he  was  appointed 
the  first  chief  justice  of  the  United  States.  He  was  a  zealous  advocate  of  the 
Constitution,  with  his  pen,1  and  in  the  verbal  debates  in  the  State  convention 
called  to  consider  it.  In  1794,  Mr.  Jay  was  appointed  an  envoy  extraordinary  to 
negotiate  a  commercial  treaty,  and  settle  some  disputes  between  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain.  The  treaty  was  not  satisfactory  to  a  great  portion  of  his  coun- 
trymen, and  as  it  also  offended  France  and  the  "French  party"  here,  intense  ex- 
citement prevailed  throughout  the  country.  Yet  he  was  sustained,  and  on  his 
return  home,  in  1795,  he  found  the  office  of  governor  of  his  native  State  awaiting 
him.  He  was  chief  magistrate  of  New  York  until  1801,  when  he  withdrew  from 
public  life  to  enjoy  repose  at  his  beautiful  seat  at  Bedford,  in  Westchester  county, 
although  he  was  then  only  fifty-six  years  of  age.  He  succeeded  Elias  Boudinot 
as  president  of  the  American  Bible  Society,  and  he  was  a  generous  patron  of 
every  moral  and  religious  enterprise.  Greatly  beloved  by  all  his  friends,  and 
respected  for  his  many  virtues  by  his  political  enemies,  that  patriarch  of  the 
Kepublic  went  peacefully  to  his  rest,  on  the  17th  of  May,  1829,  in  the  eighty- 
fourth  year  of  his  age. 

1.  He  was  a  colleague  with  Madison  and  Hamilton,  in  writing  the  series  of  papers  known,  in  the 
collected  form,  as  The  Federalist.  In  that  labor  he  was  interrupted,  for  some  time,  on  account  of  a 
severe  wound  in  the  bead,  from  a  stone,  hurled  during  a  riot  in  New  York,  known  as  The  Doctors' 
Mob. 


ROBERT   HOWE.  173 


ROBERT    HOWE. 

BECAUSE  of  the  excess  of  their  patriotic  zeal,  Samuel  Adams  and  John  Han- 
cock, of  Massachusetts,  were  denounced  as  arch-rebels,  and  were  excluded 
from  the  offered  advantages  of  a  general  amnesty.  In  like  manner,  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  denounced  Robert  Howe  and  Cornelius  Harnett,  of  the  Cape  Fear  region, 
in  North  Carolina,  in  the  Spring  of  1776,  and  they  were  honored  with  the  ban 
of  outlawry  because  of  their  patriotism.  Howe  was  born  in  Brunswick,  North 
Carolina,  but,  strange  to  say,  history  bears  no  record  of  his  private  life,  and  both 
it  and  tradition  are  silent  respecting  the  time  of  his  birth  and  his  death.  When 
Josiah  Quincy  was  in  Wilmington,  in  1773,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr. 
Howe,  and  said  in  a  letter,  descriptive  of  an  evening  spent  in  political  discussion : 
"Robert  Howe,  Esq.,  Harnett,  and  myself,  made  the  social  triumvirate  of  the 
evening."  So  bitter  were  the  Tories  against  Howe,  that  his  property  was  several 
times  injured;  and  when  Clinton  appeared  in  the  Cape  Fear  region,  early  in  1776, 
he  sent  Cornwallis,  with  nine  hundred  men,  to  indulge  his  petty  spite  by  ravaging 
that  patriot's  plantation,  near  old  Brunswick  village. 

Howe  was  appointed  colonel  of  the  first  North  Carolina  regiment,  in  1775, 
and  in  December  of  that  year,  he  joined  Woodford,  of  Virginia,  at  Norfolk,  in 
opposition  to  Governor  Dunmore  and  his  motley  army.1  For  his  gallantry  there, 
Congress  appointed  him  a  brigadier  in  the  Continental  army,  and  ordered  him 
to  Virginia.  He  was  with  the  army,  at  the  North,  during  portions  of  1776  and 
1777 ;  and  in  the  Spring  of  1778,  he  was  promoted  to  major-general,  and  placed 
in  chief  command  of  the  Southern  army.  At  his  head-quarters  at  Savannah, 
he  planned  a  campaign  against  the  British  and  Tories  in  Florida,  in  the  Summer 
of  1778.  It  failed  in  its  execution:  and  at  the  close  of  that  year,  he  was  driven 
from  Savannah,  by  a  British  force  under  lieutenant-colonel  Campbell.  These 
reverses  caused  him  to  be  censured  unjustly;2  and  when  General  Lincoln 
took  command  of  the  Southern  army,  Howe  attached  himself  to  that  of  the 
northern  department,  the  following  year.  Ho  cooperated  with  Wayne  in  his 
attack  upon  Stony  Point,  on  the  Hudson,  in  1779.  He  was  on  duty  in  the 
vicinity  of  West  Point  and  the  Hudson  Highlands  from  that  time  until  near  the 
close  qf  the  war.  Washington  appointed  him,  in  two  instances,  to  discharge 
the  important  duty  of  quelling  a  mutiny,  first  in  the  New  Jersey  line,  and  then 
in  that  of  Pennsylvania.  He  always  had  the  unbounded  confidence  of  the  com- 
mander-in-chief.  Though  always  a  very  useful  officer,  Howe  never  became 
distinguished  for  any  great  achievement.  Like  the  actions  of  General  Heath 
and  many  others,  his  line  of  duty  lay  in  the  useful  rather  than  the  brilliant — 
their  military  history  is  an  epic,  not  an  epigram. 


1.  Dunmore,  the  royal  governor  of  Virginia,  having  been  driven  from  Williamsburg,  by  (he  people, 
commence  1  a  depredatory  warfare  upon  the  coast  of  that  State.    His  force  consisted  of  Tory  refugees 
and  negroes,  yet,  with  the  aid  of  some  British  ships,  he  succeeded  in  burning  Norfolk,  on  the  1st  of 
January,  1776. 

2.  Among  those  who  raised  their  voice  against  General  Howe,  was  Christopher  Gadsden,  of  Charles- 
ton.    Howe  required  him  to  deny  or  retract.     Gadsden  would  do  neither,  and  a  duel  ensued.     All  the 
damage  sustained  by  the  parties,  in  the  fight,  was  a  scratch  upon  Gadsden' s  ear,  by  Howe's  ball.    Major 
Andre  wrote  a  humorous  account  of  the  duel,  in  eighteen  stanzas,  to  the  tune  of  Yankee  Doodle.    Ho 
concludes  by  saying  : 

"  Such  honor  did  they  both  display, 

They  highly  were  commended, 
And  thus,  in  short,  this  gallant  fray, 
Without  mischance,  was  ended. 

No  fresh  dispute,  we  may  suppose, 

Will  e'er  by  them  be  started ; 
And  now  the  chiefs,  no  longer  foes, 

Shook  hands,  and  so  they  parted." 


174 


EDWARD    LIVINGSTON. 


EDWARD    LIVINQSTON. 

THE  Livingston  family  in  America,  an  off-shoot  of.  a  stock  noted  among  the 
Scotch  nobility  of  Queen  Mary's  time,1  has  always  been  remarkable  for  fine 
specimens  of  talent,  public  spirit,  and  genuine  patriotism.  Among  the  later 
members,  Edward  Livingston  appears  conspicuous  as  a  statesman  and  jurist. 
He  was  truly  "to  the  manor  born,"  for  his  birth  occurred  at  Clermont,  Columbia 
county,  New  York,  on  the  feudal  estate  known  as  Livingston's  Manor,  in  the 
year  1764.  He  was  at  school  in  Kingston,  Ulster  county,  when  that  village  was 
burned  by  the  British,  in  1777,  and  two  years  afterward  he  entered  Princeton 
College,  and  pursued  his  studies  in  the  midst  of  alarms  and  interruptions  incident 
to  the  war  then  in  progress.  He  graduated,  in  1781,  with  only  three  others. 
Two  of  these  were  associated  with  him,  thirteen  years  afterward,  as  members 
of  the  House  of  Eepresentatives,  at  Washington.  He  studied  law  under  Chan- 
cellor Lansing,  at  Albany,  and  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1785. 

Mr.  Livingston  was  called  into  public  life,  in  1794,  by  being  elected  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  counties  of  New  York,  Queen's,  and  Richmond,  in  the  Federal 
Congress,  where  he  soon  became  a  distinguished  leader  of  the  Republican  party. 


1.  See  ske'.ch  of  Robert  R.  Livingston. 


WILLIAM   PRESCOTT.  175 


lie  maintained  a  seat  there  until  1801,  when  ho  declined  a  reelection,  and  resumed 
the  practice  of  his  profession.  President  Jefferson  soon  afterward  appointed  him 
United  States  Attorney  for  the  District  of  New  York.  lie  had  filled  the  office 
with  great  ability,  until  the  yellow  fever  broke  out  in  the  city  of  New  York,  in 
1803,  when  he  was  called  to  the  performance  of  holier  duties.  Thousands  fled, 
but  Edward  Livingston  remained  amid  the  pestilence,  to  visit  the  sick  and  bury 
the  dead.  He  was  filially  smitten  by  the  destroyer,  but  his  useful  life  was  spared. 
His  public  and  private  business  had  suffered  greatly*,  and  the  unfaithfulness  of 
some  of  those  unto  whom  ho  had  entrusted  the  performance  of  public  duties, 
placed  upon  his  shoulders  almost  crushing  pecuniary  responsibilities.  Ho  re- 
signed his  office,  took  up  his  residence  in  New  Orleans,  and  by  assiduous  atten- 
tion to  his  profession,  was  enabled  to  liquidate  every  debt,  with  interest. 

When  the  British  attempted  the  invasion  of  Louisiana,  in  1814,  Mr.  Livingston 
offered  his  services  to  General  Jackson,  and  they  were  accepted ;  and  his  pen 
wrote  the  noble  defence  of  Jackson,  when  that  officer  was  unjustly  arraigned* 
before  the  civil  tribunal  for  alleged  military  tyranny.  Mr.  Livingston  was  the 
principal  of  a  commission  appointed  to  codify  the  laws  of  Louisiana ;  and  he  is 
the  sole  author  of  the  penal  code  of  that  State,  adopted  in  1824.  On  the  very 
night  when  the  last  page  of  manuscript  was  prepared  for  the  press,  a  fire  con- 
sumed the  whole,  and  he  was  two  years  engaged  in  reproducing  it.  That  work 
is  his  noblest  and  most  enduring  monument. 

Mr.  Livingston  was  chosen  a  delegate  to  the  Federal  Congress,  in  1823;  and 
in  1829,  the  legislature  of  Louisiana  appointed  him  United  States  Senator.  He 
became  one  of  the  brightest  ornaments  of  that  higher  house,  but  after  serving 
two  sessions,  he  was  called  to  the  cabinet  of  President  Jackson,  as  Secretary  of 
State.  In  1833,  he  was  appointed  minister  to  France,  an  office  held,  thirty 
years  before,  by  his  distinguished  brother,  Robert  R.  Livingston.  His  health 
failed  soon  after  his  arrival  in  Paris,  and  he  returned  to  America,  not,  however, 
until  he  had  satisfied  his  countrymen  that  he  was  fully  competent  to  perform 
any  duty  to  which  they  might  call  him.  lie  was  with  his  relatives  in  Redhook, 
Dutchcss  county,  New  York,  when,  on  a  bright  morning  in  May  (23d),  183*7,  the 
spirit  of  this  laborious  public  servant  departed  for  the  land  of  rest. 


WILLIAM    PRESCOTT. 

HISTORIANS  have  disputed  concerning  the  chief  command  at  the  earliest 
regular  battle  of  the  Revolution,  known  as  that  of  "Bunker's  Hill,"  some 
awarding  that  honor  to  General  Israel  Putnam,  and  others  to  Colonel  William 
Prescott.  Documentary  evidence  is  conclusive  in  favor  of  the  claim  of  Prescott, 
and  its  justice  is  not  questioned  at  the  present  day.  He  was  born  in  Goshen, 
Massachusetts,  in  1726.  Of  his  early  life  we  have  no  reliable  record.  His  father 
was  for  some  years  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  council.  We  first  find  a 
notice  of  William's  public  life,  in  his  commission  of  lieutenant,  under  General 
Winslow,  in  the  expedition  against  Cape  Breton,  in  1758.  There  he  was  dis- 
tinguished for  his  bravery.  On  his  return,  ho  left  the  service,  and  settled  at 
Pepperell,  as  the  inheritor  of  a  large  estate.  He  took  quite  an  active  part  in  the 
popular  movements  while  the  Revolution  was  ripening,  and  had  command  of  a 
regiment  of  minute-men,  in  the  Spring  of  1775.  The  events  at  Lexington  and 
Concord  called  him  to  the  field,  and  he  was  very  active  in  assisting  General 
Ward  in  the  organization  of  the  impromptu  army  that  gathered  around  Boston, 
in  May  and  June  following.  Confidant  in  his  military  skill,  General  Ward 


176  CHARLES   WILSON  PEALE. 

selected  Colonel  Prescott  to  fortify  and  garrison  Bunker's  Hill,  and  on  the  even- 
ing of  the  ]6th  of  June,  1775,  he  crossed  Charlestown  Neck,  for  that  purpose, 
with  a  thousand  men,  and  intrenching  tools,  after  an  impressive  prayer  in  their 
behalf  was  offered  up  on  the  green  at  Cambridge,  by  President  Langdon,  of 
Harvard  College.  Breed's  Hill  being  nearer  Boston,  Prescott  proceeded  to  for- 
tify that,  and  at  early  dawn  the  next  morning,  the  British  in  the  city  and  on  the 
shipping  in  the  harbor, '  were  astonished  and  alarmed  by  the  apparition  of  a 
strong  redoubt,  almost  finished,  in  a  position  which  commanded  their  most  im- 
pressible points.  In  the  action  that  ensued,  the  following  day — the  memorable 
17th  of  June — Prescott  was  chief  commander.  Putnam  was  on  Bunker's  Hill, 
urging  forward  reinforcements,  and  General  Warren  was  in  the  redoubt,  as 
volunteer.  Though  driven  from  the  Charlestown  peninsula,  the  gallant  colonel 
wished  to  attack  the  conquerors  the  next  day,  but  was  overruled  by  prudent 
counsellors. 

Colonel  Prescott  continued  under  the  command  of  Washington  until  after  the 
battle  at  White  Plains,  in  the  Autumn  of  the  following  year ;  and  he  served  as 
a  volunteer  under  Gates,  until  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne,  in  October,  1777. 
After  the  war,  he  represented  his  district  in  the  State  legislature,  and  he  was 
acting  magistrate  of  Pepperell  from  1786  until  his  death.  That  event  occurred 
on  the  13th  of  October,  1795,  when  he  was  about  sixty-nine  years  of  age. 


CHARLES    WILSON    PEALE. 


me,  Mr.  Hesselius,"  said  a  saddler's  apprentice  —  a  handsome 
JL  young  man  of  twenty  —  to  an  eminent  portrait-painter  in  Annapolis, 
Maryland,  as  he  stood  before  him  with  a  good  specimen  of  his  mechanical  skill 
—  "  pray  tell  me  how  you  mix  such  beautiful  tints  for  your  canvas."  That 
saddler's  apprentice  was  Charles  Wilson  Peale,  afterward  one  of  the  most  eminent 
painters  in  our  country.  He  was  born  at  Charlestown,  Maryland,  in  1741,  and 
in  Annapolis  he  successively  learned  the  trades  of  saddler,  watch-maker,  silver- 
smith, and  carver.  From  the  day  when  he  asked  Hesselius  that  important 
question,  his  artist  life  began,  for  the  generous  painter  cordially  complied  with 
his  wishes.  Peale  studied  the  art  and  practised  his  mechanical  trade,  until  an 
opportunity  offered  for  him  to  go  to  England  and  place  himself  under  the  tutor- 
ship of  the  great  West.  He  remained  with  that  famous  artist  during  the  years 
1770,  and  1771,  when  he  returned  to  America,  and  practiced  his  art,  as  a  portrait- 
painter,  without  a  rival  for  fifteen  years.  When  the  Revolution  broke  out,  he 
joined  the  army,  and  was  at  the  head  of  a  company  in  the  battles  at  Trenton, 
Brandywine,  Germantown,  and  Monmouth.  While  at  Valley  Forge,  in  the 
Winter  of  l777-'8,  he  conceived  the  grand  design  of  making  a  gallery  of  portraits 
of  all  the  distinguished  actors  in  the  Revolution,  American  and  foreign,  and 
commenced  the  task  with  vigor.1  In  the  Spring  of  1778,  when  the  army  moved, 
he  gathered  up  his  art  materials,  and,  at  the  head  of  his  company,  he  fought  gal- 
lantly at  Monmouth.  He  had  commenced  a  full-length  portrait  of  Washington, 

1.  One  of  the  vessels,  named  Falcon,  anchored  within  short  cannon  shot  of  Breed's  Hill,  was  com- 
manded by  Captain  Linzee,  of  the  British  navy.  It  is  a  singular  fact  in  the  curious  history  of  coin- 
cidences, that  William  H.  Prescott,  the  eminent  historian,  and  grandson  of  Colonel  William  Prescott, 
married  a  grand-daughter  of  Captain  Linzee.  The  swords  used  by  Colonel  Prescott  and  Captain  Linzee, 
Jit  the  time  of  the  battle  on  Breed's  Hill,  are  crossed  in  a  conspicuous  place  in  the  library  of  the  His- 
torian. 

1.  He  also  painted  many  in  miniature,  some  of  which  I  have  seen  in  the  possession  of  his  son,  at 
Washington  city. 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS.  177 


at  Valley  Forge ;  after  the  Monmouth  battle,  he  had  another  sitting,  and  at 
Princeton  he  completed  it.1  Mr.  Peale  paid  much  attention  to  the  preservation 
of  animals  after  death,  and  possessed  a  decided  antiquarian  taste.  After  tho 
war,  he  opened  a  picture  gallery,  for  exhibition,  in  Philadelphia,  and  then  estab- 
lished a  museum  of  Natural  History  and  miscellaneous  curiosities.  He  also 
practiced  dentristry,  invented  machinery,  and  in  various  ways  was  one  of  the 
most  active  and  industrious  of  men.  He  lectured  on  Natural  History,  and  was 
a  zealous  supporter  of  the  Philadelphia  Academy  of  Fine  Arts.  He  lived  tem- 
perately and  frugally,  and  practiced  his  art  in  colors  when  past  eighty  years  of 
age.2  He  died  in  February,  1827,  at  the  age  of  almost  eighty-six  years.  His 
son,  Rembrandt  Peale,  a  worthy  successor  of  his  father  in  the  line  of  art,  is  yet 
[1855]  living,  in  Philadelphia,  at  the  age  of  seventy-six  years. 


JONATHAN    ED  WAR13S. 

THE  most  acute  metaphysician  and  sound  theologian  which  our  country  has 
yet  produced,  was  Jonathan  Edwards,  who  was  born  at  East  Windsor, 
Connecticut,  on  the  5th  of  October,  1703.  The  remarkable  analytical  powers  of 
his  mind  were  developed  in  early  childhood,  and  at  the  age  of  ten  years  he  read 
with  delight  the  profound  essay  of  Locke  on  the  Human  Understanding.  A  few 
days  before  the  completion  of  his  thirteenth  year',  he  entered  Yale  College,  as  a 
student,  and  was  graduated  there  before  he  was  seventeen  years  of  age.  Ho 
remained  in  that  then  infant  institution  for  two  years  longer,  in  the  eager  study 
of  theology,  preparatory  to  the  assumption  of  the  Christian  ministry  as  his  pro- 
fession. He  received  a  license  to  preach,  in  the  Summer  of  1722,  and  almost 
immediately  afterward,  he  was  selected  by  several  New  England  ministers  to 
preach  to  a  small  body  of  Presbyterians  in  the  city  of  New  York.  In  1724,  ho 
was  appointed  a  tutor  in  Yale  College,  where  he  remained  until  called  to  a  pas- 
toral charge  in  Northampton,  Massachusetts,  in  the  Summer  of  1726.  There  ho 
was  ordained  as  a  colleague  of  his  grandfather,  the  Rev.  Solomon  Stoddard,  who, 
for  more  than  fifty  years,  had  been  the  pastor  of  the  Congregational  church  in 
that  town.  That  continued  to  be  the  home-field  of  labor,  of  Mr.  Edwards,  for 
twenty-three  years,  when  an  increasing  dislike  of  his  pure  church  discipline 
alienated  his  people  from  him,  and,  in  June,  1750,  he  was  dismissed  by  an  ec- 
clesiastical council.3 

In  1751,  Mr.  Edwards  was  appointed  a  missionary  to  the  Stockbridge  Indians, 
in  Berkshire  county,  Massachusetts,  and  in  that  field  ho  labored  for  about  six 
years.  His  duties  being  comparatively  light,  he  devoted  much  of  his  time  to 
theological  and  metaphysical  studies,  and  in  that  comparative  retirement  ho 
wrote  his  great  work  on  The  Freedom  of  the  Will,  which  has  been  considered  by 

1.  That  portrait,  having  Nassau  Hall,  at  Princeton,  for  a  back-ground,  is  in  the  gallery  of  the  National 
Institute,  at  Washington  city.     When  the  Americans,  under  Washington,  drove  the  British  out  of  Nassau 
Hall,  on  the  morning  of  the  2d  of  January,  1777,  they  sent  a  cannon  ball  into  the  building,  -which 
destroyed  a  portrait  of  King  George.    Washington  presented  the  college  with  a  sum  of  money,  because 
of  the  damage  done  to  the  building.     The  Faculty  employed  Peale  to  paint  a  full-length  portrait  of  the 
great  Patriot,  and  placed  it  in  the  frame  occupied  by  that  of  the  king,  where  it  yet  remains. 

2.  I  have  seen  a  full-length  portrait  of  himself,  which  he  painted  at  the  age  of  eighty.     In  October, 
1854,  all  of  his  paintings  remaining  in  the  museum  at  Philadelphia,  were  sold  at  auction.     Many  of  them 
were  purchased  by  the  City  Council,  and  now  decorate  the  walls  of  Independence  Hall. 

6.  Mr.  Edwards  had  been  informed  of  immoralities  in  which  many  of  the  young  people  of  his  congre- 
gation indulged,  and  he  thought  the  matter  ought  to  be  inquired  into.  The  church  readily  favored  his 
views,  but  when  it  was  found  that  the  accused  persons  belonged  to  some  of  the  wealthiest  and  most 
influential  families  in  the  place,  it  was  impossible  to  proceed  with  the  inquiry.  The  conscientious  pastor 
»  n°uswerve  from  dutv»  but  tne  failure  of  his  attempt  to  correct  the  morals  of  the  young  people, 
strengthened  their  hands.  For  six  years  before  his  dismissal  he  fought  the  enemy  manfully. 

8* 


178 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS. 


the  most  learned  men  in  Europe  and  America,  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  efforts 
of  the  human  mind.  In  1754,  a  severe  illness,  and  the  troubles  incident  to  the 
French  and  Indian  war,  then  progressing,  interrupted  his  labors,  and,  beyond 
the  efforts  of  his  pen,  his  field  of  usefulness  was  very  limited.  It  was  soon  en- 
larged. In  the  Autumn  of  1*757,  his  son-in-law,  Rev.  Aaron  Burr,  president  of 
the  college  of  New  Jersey,  at  Princeton,  died,  and  Mr.  Edwards  was  invited  by 
the  Trustees  of  that  institution  to  take  his  place.  He  was  formally  elected 
president,  toward  the  close  of  September,  1757.  He  reluctantly  accepted  the 
call,  for  he  knew  there  were  more  delights  to  himself  in  the  quiet  pursuits  in 
which  he  was  engaged,  than  in  the  duties  of  such  official  station,  and  he  re- 
garded his  labors  with  his  pen  as  more  useful  than  any  others  in  which  he  might 
engage  at  that  time  of  life.  He  was  inaugurated  in  February,  1758.  Five 
weeks  afterward,  that  great  and  good  man  was  laid  in  the  grave.  The  small- 
pox was  prevalent  in  Princeton  at  the  time  of  his  arrival,  and  a  skilful  physician 
was  brought  from  Philadelphia  to  inoculate1  President  Edwards  and  his  family. 
He  seemed  to  do  well,  but  when  all  danger  appeared  to  be  over,  a  secondary 
fever  supervened,  his  throat  became  so  obstructed  that  medicines  could  not  bo 
swallowed,  and  the  disease,  gathering  increased  strength,  terminated  his  life  on 
the  22d  of  March,  1758,  when  he  was  in  the  fifty-fifth  year  of  his  age.  The 

1,  See  Note  2?  pa^o  Cl. 


JOHN   WITHERSPOON.  179 


published  theological  writings  of  President  Edwards  are  voluminous,  and  are 
ranked  among  the  most  valuable  uninspired  contributions  to  religious  literature, 
of  any  a^e. 


JOHN    WITHERSPOON. 

IN  the  family  circle,  the  temple  of  worship,  the  hall  of  learning,  and  the  forum 
of  legislation,  few  men  ever  performed  their  whole  duty  more  faithfully  than 
did  John  Witherspoon,  of  New  Jersey,  in  whose  veins  ran  the  blood  of  the  great 
Scottish  reformer,  John  Knox.  He  was  born  in  the  parish  of  Tester,  near 
Edinburgh,  Scotland,  on  the  5th  of  February,  1722.  His  father  was  a  Scottish 
minister,  and  the  loveliness  of  his  mind  and  temper  was  transmitted  to  his  son. 
He  educated  the  intellectual  and  moral  faculties  of  that  promising  boy  with  the 
greatest  care,  for  he  designed  him  for  that  gospel  ministry  which  he  afterward 
adorned.  At  the  age  of  fourteen  years  he  was  placed  in  the  University  of 
Edinburgh,  where  he  became  a  close  student,  especially  of  sacred  literature. 
He  went  through  a  regular  course  of  theological  studies,  and  at  the  age  of 
twenty-two  he  was  graduated,  with  a  license  to  preach.  He  accepted  a  call  to 
Beith,  in  the  west  of  Scotland;  and  in  1745,  while,  with  some  others,  he  was 
gazing  upon  the  battle  of  Falkirk,  where  the  troops  of  the  Scotch  Pretender  to 
the  throne  of  England1  were  victorious,  he  was  made  a  prisoner,  and  was  con- 
fined in  the  castle  of  Donne,  for  some  time.  He  afterward  took  charge  of  a 
parish  in  Paisley  ;  and  the  fame  of  his  learning  and  piety  caused  him  to  receive 
invitations  to  settle  in  Dundee,  Dublin,  and  Eotterdam  in  Holland.  In  1766, 
the  trustees  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey,  at  Princeton,  invited  him  to  accept 
the  presidency  of  that  institution,  and  through  the  influence  of  Eichard  Stockton 
(afterward  Witherspoon's  colleague  in  the  Continental  Congress),  then  in  Scot- 
land, he  was  persuaded  to  accept  the  office.  He  came  to  America,  in  1768,  was 
inaugurated  in  August  of  that  year,  and  under  his  efficient  administration  the 
affairs  of  the  college  prospered  wonderfully.  Its  usefulness  had  been  greatly 
impaired  by  party  feuds  ;  these  were  soon  healed,  and  that  seminary,  which 
seemed  past  resuscitation,  was  becoming  one  of  the  most  flourishing  in  the  land, 
when  the  blight  of  the  Revolution  fell  upon  it.  Its  pupils  were  then  scattered, 
its  doors  were  closed,  and  early  in  1776,  Doctor  Witherspcon  employed  his 
talents  and  influence  in  another  field  of  usefulness.  He  assisted  in  forming  a 
republican  constitution  for  New  Jersey,  and  in  June  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in 
the  Continental  Congress,  where  he  nobly  advocated  independence,  and  signed 
his  name  to  the  Declaration  thereof.2  He  was  a  faithful  member  of  Congress 
until  1782,  and  took  a  conspicuous  part  in  military  and  financial  matters.  In 
1783,  he  endeavored  to  revive  the  prostrated  College  at  Princeton,  and  found 
an  efficient  co-worker  in  his  son-in-law,  Vice-President  Smith.  Contrary  to  the 
dictates  of  his  own  judgment,  Dr.  Witherspoon  went  to  Great  Britain  for  pecu- 
niary aid  to  the  institution,  and  he  collected  scarcely  enough  to  pay  the  expenses 
of  the  journey.  He  came  back  with  a  heavy  heart  but  determined  purpose,  and 
labored  on  faithfully  in  the  pulpit  and  in  the  college,  while  his  powers  of  life 
remained  active.  About  two  years  before  his  death  he  lost  his  eye-sight,  yet  he 
maintained  his  place  in  his  pulpit  with  unabated  zeal,  until  a  few  weeks  before 
his  departure.  His  useful  life  closed  on  the  10th  of  November,  1794,  at  the  age 
of  almost  seventy-three  years,  _ 

1.  Charles  Edward,  grandson  of  James  the  Second,  who  was  dethroned  in  1688. 

2.  In  the  course  of  debate  on  the  subject  of  independence,  John  Dickenson,  of  Pennsylvania,  ventured 
to  assert  that  the  people  were  not  "  ripe  for  a  declaration  of  independence."     Doctor  Witherspoon 
warmly  observed,  "In  my  judgment,  sir,  we  are  not  only  ripe,  but  rotting." 


180  RICHARD   HENDERSON. 


RICHARD    HENDERSON. 

4  LTHOUGrH  Daniel  Boone  may  be  considered  the  first  thorough  explorer  of 
J3.  the  wilderness  of  Kentucky,  and  James  Harrod  built  the  first  log-house  in 
all  that  beautiful  land,  yet  Colonel  Richard  Henderson  must  be  regarded,  polit- 
ically, as  the  father  of  that  commonwealth.  He  was  a  native  of  Virginia.  He 
was  born  in  Hanover  county,  on  the  20th  of  April,  1735.  His  father  emigrated 
to  G-ranville  county,  North  Carolina,  in  1745,  and  being  appointed  sherifl'  of 
that  district,  Richard  had  an  opportunity  of  learning  many  useful  lessons  in  mat- 
ters pertaining  to  law.  He  prepared  himself  for  the  legal  profession,  arose  rap- 
idly to  the  highest  rank,  accumulated  a  competent  fortune,  and,  when  the  in- 
surrectionary movements  in  that  section  of  the  county,  known  as  the  Regulator 
War  *  occurred,  he  was  a  judge  of  the  superior  court.  As  such,  he  was  driven 
from  the  bench  at  Hillsborough,  by  the  Regulators,  in  the  Autumn  of  1771,  and 
the  courts  of  justice,  in  that  region,  were  closed.  He  was  an  ambitious  and 
ostentatious  man.  By  extensive  speculations,  at  about  this  time,  he  had  become 
somewhat  embarrassed  in  pecuniary  affairs,  and  had  gained  the  ill-will  of  the 
common  people.  Bold,  ardent,  and  adventurous,  he  resolved  to  go  beyond  the 
mountains,  and  there,  in  the  beautiful  country  traversed  by  Boone,  he  commenced 
a  scheme  of  land  speculation,  in  1774,  more  extensive  than  any  known  in  the 
history  of  our  country.  He  formed  a  company,  of  which  he  was  chosen  pres- 
ident, and  by  a  treaty  held  at  Wataga  with  the  heads  of  the  Cherokee  nation, 
he  purchased  the  whole  land  lying  between  the  Cumberland  river  and  mountains, 
and  the  Kentucky  river,  which  comprised  more  than  one-half  of  the  present 
State  of  Kentucky.  Henderson  took  possession  of  the  country  in  the  name  of 
the  company,  in  the  Spring  of  1775.  Governor  Martin,  of  North  Carolina,  pro- 
claimed the  purchase  to  be  illegal.  The  legislature  of  Virginia  did  the  same, 
but  Judge  Henderson  paid  no  regard  to  their  fulminations  against  him,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  establish  a  proprietary  government,  in  imitation  of  the  old  colonies. 
Its  capital  was  Boonesborough,  and  its  title  was  TRANSYLVANIA.  Under  a  large 
elm  tree  near  Boone's  fort,  the  first  legislature  of  the  new  State  met  on  the  23d 
of  May,  1775.-  The  session  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev.  John  Lythc; 
and  Colonel  Henderson  in  his  verbal  "message"  as  president,  expressed  the 
very  essence  of  republican  government,  when  he  said,  "If  any  doubts  remain 
among  you,  with  respect  to  the  force  and  efficiency  of  whatever  laws  you  now 
or  hereafter  make,  be  pleased  to  consider  that  all  power  is  originally  in  the 
people ;  make  it  their  interest,  therefore,  by  impartial  and  beneficent  laws,  and 
you  may  be  sure  of  their  inclination  to  see  them  enforced." 

The  State  of  TRANSYLVANIA  as  an  independent  republic  did  not  long  exist, 
for  Virginia  and  Carolina  took  efficient  means  to  destroy  it.  The  treaty  with 
the  Cherokees,  and  the  purchase  of  their  lands,  were  declared  null.  Yet  they 
did  not  deprive  the  company  of  all  advantages.  North  Carolina  and  Virginia 
each  granted  to  them  two  hundred  thousand  acres.  Relinquishing  all  political 
claims,  Judge  Henderson  opened  a  land  office  on  the  site  of  Nashville,  in  1779, 
for  the  sale  of  this  legally-granted  domain.  The  following  Summer  he  returned 
to  Grranville  county,  and  sought  repose  in  the  bosom  of  his  family.  Old  diffi- 
culties were  forgotten,  for  the  great  question  of  independence  was  then  in  process 

1.  See  note  on  page  97  ;  also  sketch  of  John  Ashe. 

2.  It  was  composed  of  Squire  Boone,  Daniel  Boone,  William  Coke,  Samuel  Henderson,  Richard  Moore 
Richard  Galloway,  Thomas  Slaughter,  John  Lythe,  Valentine  Hammond,  James  Douglas,  James  Har- 
rod, Nathan  Hammond,  Isaac  Hite,  Azariah  Davis,  John  Todd,  Alexander  S.  Dandridge,  John  Floyd, 
and  Samuel  Wood.     Thomas  Slaughter  was  chosen  chairman,  Mathcw  Jewett  clerk,  and  John  Lythj 
chaplain. 


ALEXANDER  WILSON.  181 

of  solution  by  the  whole  people  of  the  newly-proclaimed  Union.  Judge  Hen- 
derson did  not  take  part  in  public  affairs,  but  lived  on  in  quiet  until  the  30th  of 
January,  1785,  when  he  died  at  the  ago  of  fifty  years.  Henderson  county, 
Kentucky,  was  named  in  his  honor. 


ALEXANDER    WILSON. 

1TTE  may  justly  claim  Alexander  "Wilson  as  an  American,  though  born  in 
T  T  North  Britain,  for  here  the  genius  which  has  made  him  world-renowned, 
as  The  American  Ornithologist,  was  developed,  and  cultivated,  and  bore  fruit. 
He  was  born  in  Paisley,  Scotland,  and  in  a  grammar  school,  in  that  large  town, 
he  acquired  a  rudimental  knowledge  of  the  classics.  His  father  designed  him 
for  the  clerical  profession,  but  the  expansive  mind  of  the  youth  would  not  allow 
him  to  be  a  sectarian,  and  the  scheme  was  abandoned..  From  earliest  boyhood 
he  loved  the  fields  and  the  sky ;  and  he  regarded  the  towering  mountains  and 
grand  old  forests  as  the  most  appropriate  temples  wherein  man  should  worship 
the  Creator  of  all.  Pecuniary  misfortune  compelled  his  father  to  suspend  Alex- 
ander's literary  pursuits,  on  which  he  had  entered  with  enthusiasm,  and  finally 
the  necessity  of  learning  some  mechanical  trade  seemed  imperative.  The  ardent 
youth  could  not  brook  the  idea  of  having  his  powers  confined  to  such  a  narrow 
sphere,  for  he  felt  a  great  soul  stirring  within ;  yet  he  reverently  bent  his  in- 
clinations to  his  father's  wishes.  Every  leisure  moment,  however,  was  employed 
in  study,  and  in  the  midst  of  his  mechanical  employment,  he  composed  articles, 
in  prose  and  verse,  which  attracted  public  attention,  before  he  was  nineteen 
years  of  age.  He  soon  became  the  life  of  a  select  literary  circle,  yet  his  daily 
avocations,  so  repugnant  to  his  nature,  burdened  his  spirit  with  gloom.  He  saw 
no  chance  for  expansion  in  his  native  country;  and  in  1794,  he  embarked  for 
America,  to  profit  by  the  free  air  and  as  free  institutions.  For  more  than  a 
dozen  years  afterward  he  was  engaged  in  the  humble  but  honorable  employment 
of  a  district  school  teacher.  His  lot  seemed  a  hard. one,  but  he  found  consolation 
in  poetry,  music,  and  his  favorite  study  of  birds.  The  latter  became  a  passion 
with  him,  and  he  had  the  good  fortune,  at  length,  to  form  an  acquaintance  with 
William  Bartram,  of  Philadelphia,  the  celebrated  American  Botanist.1  From 
him  he  obtained  a  standard  work  on  ornithology,  the  perusal  of  which  was  the 
commencement  of  a  new  era  in  Wilson's  life.  Ho  found  the  work  quite  inac- 
curate in  many  particulars  concerning  the  birds  of  the  United  States,  and  ho 
formed  the  idea  of  making  a  complete  system  of  American  Ornithology.  He  at 
once  applied  himself  successfully  to  the  study  of  drawing  and  coloring  from 
nature.  At  about  this  time,  he  became  clerk  to  a  bookseller  in  Philadelphia, 
with  a  liberal  salary,  and  to  him  he  disclosed  his  scheme  of  a  work  on  American 
birds.  Mr.  Bradford  was  delighted  with  the  idea,  and  at  once  gave  Wilson  every 
facility  for  preparing  that  magnificent  work,  The  American  Ornithology,  in  seven 
volumes,  which  appeared  in  1808.  Every  portion  of  our  country,  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Mississippi,  and  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
was  traversed  by  Wilson,  all  alone,  with  the  sublime  ardor  of  a  man  conscious 
of  performing  a  great  work.  His  splendid  volumes  at  once  attracted  the  earnest 
attention  of  the  learned  in  both  hemispheres,  and  fame  and  fortune  awaited  him. 
But  he  did  not  live  long  to  enjoy  either.  The  hardships  and  privations  to  which 
he  had  been  exposed,  impaired  a  never  rugged  constitution,  and  on  the  23d  of 
August,  1813,  he  died,  peacefully,  at  Philadelphia,  when  at  the  age  of  about 
forty  years. 

1,  See  sketch  of  Bartrara. 


182 


RUFUS   PUTNAM. 


RUFTJS    PUTNAM. 

THE  name  of  Putnam  is  suggestive  of  bold  daring  border  exploits,  and  true 
patriotism,  notwithstanding  of  the.  eighty  males  of  that  name,  living  in 
America,  in  1*740,  only  two  (Israel  and  Rufus)  appear  conspicuous  in  our  country's 
annals.  Rufus  was  born  at  Sutton,  "Worcester  county,  Massachusetts,  on  the 
9th  of  April,  1738.  On  the  death  of  his  father,  in  1745,  he  went  to  live  with 
his  maternal  grandfather,  in  Danvers,  where  he  attended  a  district  school  for 
two  years.  His  mother  married  again,  and  Rufus  lived  with  her  until  his  step- 
father died,  in  1753.  That  illiterate  man  denied  the  lad  all  opportunities  for 
education.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  was  apprenticed  to  a  mill-wright.  At  that 
time  the  French  and  Indian  war  was  kindling  brightly,  and  the  campaign  of 
Braddock,  and  the  bold  exploits  of  his  kinsman,  Israel,  warmed  a  martial  spirit 
within  him.  At  the  age  of  nineteen  .years  he  entered  the  provincial  army  as  a 
private  soldier ;  and  he  mentions,  in  his  journal,  the  note-worthy  fact,  that  the 
captain  of  his  company1  prayed  with  the  men  every  night  and  morning  during 
the  campaign.  He  remained  in  service  until  1761,  when  he  resumed  his  em- 

1.  Captain  Ebenezer  Learned,  who  was  a  colonel  in  the  army  under  General  Gates  at  the  capture  of 
Burgoyne,  in  1777,  and  afterward  a  brigadier  in  the  Continental  army. 


MESHECH  WEARE.  183 


ployments  of  mill-building  and  farming.  Having  acquired  n  knowledge  of  sur- 
veying, he  practiced  it  successfully  for  several  years  before  the  clarion  of  the 
Revolution  called  him  again  to  the  field.  He  was  one  of  the  military  land  com- 
pany, who  sent  General  Lyman  to  Lngland,  in  1763 ;'  and  1773,  he  accompanied 
Colonel  Israel  Putnam  and  others  to  the  "  Yazoo  country." 

Mr.  Putnam  joined  the  revolutionary  army  at  Cambridge,  in  1775,  and  there 
his  knowledge  of  surveying  was  brought  into  requisition.  He  assisted  efficiently 
in  the  construction  of  those  works  on  Dorchester  Heights,  which  caused  the 
British  to  prepare  for  leaving  Boston.  After  that,  he  was  employed  elsewhere 
in  the  engineering  department;  and  in  August,  1776,  he  was  appointed  by 
Congress,  an  engineer,  with  the  rank  of  colonel.  In  February,  1778,  he  succeeded 
Colonel  Greaton  in  command  of  troops  in  the  northern  department,  and  during 
the  remainder  of  the  war  he  was  actively  connected  with  the  engineering  corps 
of  the  army.  On  the  8th  of  January,  1783,  he  was  commissioned  a  brigadier- 
general  in  the  Continental  army,  but  peace  was  now  exchanging  the  olive 
branch  for  the  laurel  and  the  palm,  and  he  soon  afterward  retired  to  his  farm. 

From  1783  to  1788,  he  was  engaged  in  organizing  a  company  for  emigrating 
to  and  settling  in  the  Ohio  country,  and  thither  he  went,  as  the  general  agent,  in 
the  Spring  of  1788.  He  was  accompanied  by  about  forty  settlers.  They  pitched 
their  tents  at  the  mouth  of  the  Muskingum  river,  formed  a  settlement  there,  and 
called  it  Marietta.  Suspecting  hostility  on  the  part  of  the  neighboring  Indians, 
he  built  a  fort  near  by,  and  called  it  Campus  Martins.  That  year  they  planted 
one  hundred  and  thirty  acres  of  corn.  This  was  the  beginning  of  that  tide  of 
emigration  to  Ohio  which  soon  flowed  so  deep  and  broad;  and  General  Putnam 
lived  to  S33  a  nourishing  State  organized,  and  having,  at  the  time  of  his  death, 
seventy  counties,  and  three-quarters  of  a  million  of  inhabitants.  In  1789,  Pres- 
ident Washington  appointed  him  judge  of  the  supreme  court  of  the  North-west 
Territory,  and,  in  1792,  he  was  appointed  a  brigadier,  under  General  Wayne. 
In  1796,  he  was  made  surveyor-general  of  the  United  States,  and  held  that  office 
until  after  the  accession  of  Mr.  Jefferson  to  the  presidency.  He  was  a  member 
of  the  convention  that  framed  a  constitution  for  the  State  of  Ohio,  in  1802,  and 
this  was  his  last  public  service  of  much  moment.  He  made  Marietta  his  resid- 
ence, and  enjoyed  the  repose  of  private  life  until  the  first  day  of  May,  1824, 
when  he  died.  No  individual  did  more  for  securing  the  benefits  to  be  derived 
from  the  conquests  of  George  Rogers  Clarke  north  of  the  Ohio,2  than  General 
Rufus  Putnam,  and  he  has  been  justly  styled  the  FATHER  OF  OHIO. 


MESHECH    WEARE. 

"  1TE  dared  to  love  his  country  and  be  poor,"  was  the  epigramatic  encomium 
JLl  bestowed  upon  Meshech  Weare,  the  first  republican  governor  of  New 
Hampshire,  by  one  who  knew  and  estimated  his  worth.  He  was  not  possessed 
of  brilliant  genius,  superior  intellect,  nor  extraordinary  abilities  of  any  kind,  but 
exhibited  a  happy  combination  of  good  sense,  stern  integrity,  pure  heart,  and 
clear  intelligence.  He  was  precisely  the  man  for  the  place  and  times  in  which 
his  lot  was  cast.  Mr.  Weare  was  a  native  of  Hampton,  New  Hampshire,  where 
he  was  born  in  1714.  He  was  educated  at  Harvard  College,  where  he  was 
graduated  in  1735.  In  the  disputes  between  Governor  "Wentworth  and  the 

1.  See  sketch  of  General  Lyman.  2.  See  sketch  of  George  Rogers  Clarke. 


184  FRANCIS   MARION. 


Colonial  Assembly,  Mr.  "Weare,  (for  a  number  of  years  a  member  of  that  body), 
was  always  found  on  the  side  of  the  people.  In  1752,  he  was  chosen  Speaker 
of  the  house.  "When,  in  1754,  delegates  from  the  several  colonies  assembled  at 
Albany  to  discuss  plans  for  mutual  defence,  and  to  consider  the  expediency  of  a 
political  union,  Mr.  Weare  represented  New  Hampshire  in  that  body,  and  warmly 
approved  a  plan  of  confederation,  proposed  by  Dr.  Franklin.  And  when,  ten 
years  later,  the  disputes  between  the  colonies  and  Great  Britain  grew  warm,  Mr. 
"Weare  was  a  staunch  supporter  of  all  republican  measures. 

In  January,  1776,  a  hastily-prepared  Constitution  went  into  operation  in  New 
Hampshire,  and  Mr.  "Weare  was  chosen  to  an  office  equivalent  to  that  of  gover- 
nor of  the  embryo  State.  He  was  also  appointed  chief  justice  of  the  supreme 
court ;  and  in  such  high  estimation  was  he  held  by  his  fellow-citizens,  that  they 
virtually  invested  him  with  dictatorial  prerogatives,  for  he  wielded  the  powers 
of  the  highest  offices  in  their  gift,  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial.  In  1779, 
a  new  Constitution  was  framed  by  a  convention,  of  which  John  Langdon  was 
president,  but  the  people  rejected  it.  Again,  in  1784,  a  convention  framed  ,1 
Constitution,  and  it  was  accepted.  Again,  Meshech  "Weare,  the  faithful  servant 
of  the  people,  was  elected  chief  magistrate,  but  the  duties  of  public  life,  combin- 
ing with  the  decay  of  age,  had  now  produced  great  feebleness  in  his  vital  powers, 
and  before  the  expiration  of  the  year,  he  was  compelled  to  resign  the  office 
which  he  had  held  with  so  much  dignity  for  nine  years.  He  retired  to  private 
life,  a  worn  out  public  servant,  and  died  at  Hampton  Falls,  on  the  15th  of  Jan- 
uary, 1786,  at  the  age  of  seventy-two  years.  His  voluminous  papers,  comprised 
in  several  large  manuscript  volumes,  are  now  in  the  custody  of  the  New  York 
Historical  Society. 


FRANCIS    MARION. 

'THERE  is  scarcely  a  plantation  within  thirty  miles  of  the  banks  of  the  Cori- 
-L  garee  and  Santee,  from  Columbia  to  the  sea,  that  has  not  some  local  tradi- 
tion of  the  presence  of  Marion,  the  great  partisan  leader  in  South  Carolina  during 
the  Revolution.  He  was  a  descendant  of  one  of  the  Huguenots  who  fled  from 
France  toward  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  was  born  at  "Winyaw, 
near  Georgetown,  South  Carolina,  in  1732.  His  infancy  gave  no  promise  of 
mature  life,  much  less  of  greatness  in  achievements ;  for,  according  to  "Weems, 
he  was  as  "small  as  a  New  England  lobster,  at  his  birth,  and  might  have  been 
put  into  a  quart  pot."  His  education  was  very  limited,  and,  except  a  few 
months  at  sea,  while  a  youth,  his  life  was  spent  in  agricultural  pursuits,  until 
his  twenty-seventh  year.  Then  the  hostilities  of  the  Indians  on  the  western 
frontiers  called  the  young  men  of  the  Carolinas  to  arms,  and  Marion  became  a 
soldier,  with  Moultrie  and  others,  who  afterward  fought  nobly  for  freedom.  In 
the  wild  Cherokee  country  he  obtained  great  applause  for  his  bravery ;  and 
when  the  Revolution  broke  out,  he  was  offered  a  captain's  commission,  which 
he  accepted.  He  was  successful  in  the  recruiting  service,  early  in  1776;  and 
during  the  attack  on  Charleston,  in  the  Summer  of  that  year,  he  fought  bravely 
under  Moultrie,  in  the  Palmeto  fort,  in  the  harbor.  He  was  afterward  engaged 
in  the  contest  at  Savannah,  and  was  in  Charleston  while  the  siege  of  that  city, 
by  the  British,  in  the  Spring  of  1789,  was  progressing.  Disabled  by  an  accident,1 

1.  Marion  was  dining  with  some  friends  at  a  house  in  Tradd  Street,  Charleston,  when,  on  an  attemrl 
being  made  to  cause  him  to  drink  wine  contrary  to  his  practice  and  desire,  he  leaped  from  a  window, 
and  sprained  his  ankle.  The  Americans  yet  kept  the  country  toward  the  Santee,  open,  and  Marion  was 
conveyed  to  his  home. 


FRANCIS   MARION. 


185 


he  loft  the  city  before  its  surrender,  and  made  his  way  home,  where  he  remained 
until  just  before  the  defeat  of  Gates  near  Camden,  in  August  following.  Then, 
notwithstanding  he  was  quite  lame,  he  mounted  his  horse,  collected  a  score  of 
volunteers,  and  offered  his  services  to  Gates.  They  were  not  readily  accepted 
by  that  proud  general,  because  of  the  uncouth  appearance  of  the  men.1  Soon 
afterward,  being  called  to  the  command  of  the  militia  of  the  "Williamsburg  Dis- 
trict, in  the  vicinity  of  the  Black  and  Pedee  rivers,  he  formed  his  famous  Brigade, 
with  which  he  performed  such  wondrous  feats  during  the  remainder  of  the  war. 
I  need  not  stop  to  detail  his  exploits  during  the  two  years  succeeding  the  forma- 
tion of  his  brigade,  for  they  are,  or  ought  to  be,  familiar  to  every  American 
reader,  young  or  old.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  to  Marion's  Brigade,  more  than  to 
any  other  corps  in  the  South,  the  credit  of  the  expulsion  of  the  British  from  the 
Carolinas  and  Georgia,  is  due ;  and  General  Greene  regarded  him  as  his  strong 
right  arm,  especially  after  the  siege  of  Ninety-Six,  in  the  Summer  of  1781. 


1.  According  to  Colonel  Williams,  they  must  have  appeared  worse  than  FalstafPs  "  ragged  regiment." 


486  RICHARD   HENRY   LEE. 

Just  before  the  war,  Marion  had  occupied  a  seat  in  the  legislature  of  South 
Carolina,  and  early  in  1782,  when  that  body  was  reorganized  by  Governor  Rut- 
ledge,  he  was  again  elected  to  the  Senate.  Circumstances  soon  called  him  from 
the  council  to  the  field,  and  he  did  not  relinquish  his  sword  until  the  British 
evacuated  Charleston  toward  the  close  of  1782,  and  the  sun  of  peace  arose. 
Then  he  disbanded  his  Brigade,  and  retired  to  his  farm  near  Eutaw  Springs,  on 
the  Santee.  There  all  was  utter  desolation ;  and  at  the  ago  of  fifty,  he  com- 
menced the  world  anew,  as  a  planter,  with  scarcely  money  enough  to  purchase 
utensils  for  his  laborers.  An  almost  sinecure  office — commander  of  Fort  John- 
son, in  Charleston  harbor — was  created  for  him,  and  the  emoluments  ^vere  of 
essential  service  to  the  veteran.  At  length  a  Desdemonia,  enamored  of  the  hero 
because  of  his  exploits,  offered  him  her  hand  and  fortune,  through  the  kind 
mediation  of  friends.  She  was  a  Huguenot  maiden  of  forty  years,  comely  and 
rich.  The  hitherto  invincible  soldier  was  conquered,  and  his  home  at  Pond 
Bluff  was  made  happy  during  the  remainder  of  his  life,  by  a  loving  wife  and  the 
means  for  dispensing  a  generous  hospitality  to  his  friends.  lie  enjoyed  these 
pleasures  for  about  ten  years,  alternating  them  occasionally  with  legislative 
duties,  and  then  went  to  his  rest,  without  having  a  child  to  perpetuate  his  name 
or  blood.  He  died  on  the  29th  of  February,  1795,  at  the  age  of  about  sixty- 
three  years,  and  was  buried  in  the  church-yard  at  Belle  Isle,  where  a  neat  marble 
slab  denotes  the  resting-place  of  his  remains. 


RICHARD    HENRY    LEE. 

IN"  the  midst  of  the  doubt,  and  dread,  and  hesitation,  which  for  twenty  days 
had  brooded  over  the  Continental  Congress,  after  the  first  step  had  been 
taken  in  the  direction  of  political  independence  of  Great  Britain,  a  clear,  musical 
voice  was  heard  uttering  a  resolution,  "  That  these  united  colonies  are,  and  of 
right  ought  to  be,  free  and  independent  States ;  that  they  are  absolved  from  all 
allegiance  to  the  British  Crown ;  and  that  all  political  connection  between  them 
and  the  State  of  Great  Britain  is,  and  ought  to  be,  totally  dissolved."  It  was 
the  voice  of  Richard  Henry  Lee,  a  delegate  from  Virginia.  He  was  a  scion  of 
one  of  the  early  cavalier  families  of  that  State,  and  was  born  at  Stratford,  in 
"Westmoreland  county,  on  the  20th  of  January,  1732.  According  to  the  fashion 
of  that  time,  his  father  sent  him  to  England  to  be  educated.  Ho  was  in  a  school 
at  Wakeneld,  in  Yorkshire,  for  several  years,  where  he  was  a  thoughtful  student, 
and  lover  of  ancient  classic  and  historical  literature.  At  the  ago  of  nineteen 
years  he  returned  to  Virginia,  and  his  time  was  spent  in  athletic  exercises  and 
study.  He  formed  a  military  corps  among  his  youthful  companions,  was  elected 
to  the  chief  command,  and  first  appears  in  history  at  the  council  called  at  Alex- 
andria, by  Braddock,  in  1755. 1  There  young  Lee  appeared  and  offered  the  ser- 
vices of  himself  and  volunteers,  in  the  proposed  expedition  against  the  French 
and  Indians  on  the  Ohio.  The  proud  Braddock  refused  to  accept  the  services 
of  these  plain  young  provincials,  and  the  deeply-mortified  Leo  returned  homo 
with  his  troops.  Then  was  planted  in  his  bosom  the  first  seeds  of  hatred  and 
disgust  of  the  insolence  of  British  officials,  and  it  germinated  and  bore  abundant 
fruit  twenty  years  afterward. 

1.  General  Braddock  called  a  council  of  colonial  governors,  at  Alexandria,  on  the  Potomac,  to  consult 
upon  a  campaign  against  the  French  and  Indians.  Several  of  those  magistrates,  with  Admiral  Keppel, 
met  there,  arranged  satisfactory  plans,  and  Braddock  started  OH  his  unfortunate  march  toward  the 
Alleghanies. 


JOSIAH  QULNCY,   JR.  187 


In  1757,  Governor  Dinwiddio  appointed  Mr.  Lee  a  justice  of  the  peace.  At 
about  the  same  time  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Burgesses  of  Vir- 
ginia, though  only  twenty-five  years  of  age.  He  was  extremely  diffident,  but 
at  times  his  zeal  would  master  his  bashfulness,  and  then  those  powers  of  oratory, 
afterward  so  conspicuous  in  the  Continental  Congress,  would  beam  out  in  won- 
drous splendor.  He  was  one  of  the  earliest  opposers  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  was 
the  first  man  in  Virginia  to  stand  forth  in  public  as  its  avowed  opponent.  From 
that  time  until  the  war  broke  out,  he  was  a  leader  among  the  patriots  in  his 
State ;  and  long  before  the  idea  became  general,  he  spoke  of  tho  necessity  of 
independence.  Ho  was  a  member  of  the  first  Continental  Congress,  in  1774,  and 
while  in  that  body  he  was  always  upon  the  most  important  committees.  In 
June,  1776,  ho  fearlessly  offered  the  resolution  above  quoted,  and  took  upon 
himself  the  fearful  responsibility  of  being  branded  by  tho  imperial  government  as 
an  arch-traitor.1  After  considerable  debate,  that  resolution  was  made  the  special 
order  of  the  day  for  tho  2d  of  July  following,2  and  a  committee  of  five  were  ap- 
pointed to  draw  up  a  preamble  or  declaration,  in  accordance  with  it.  On  the 
day  when  the  resolution  to.  appoint  a  committee  was  proposed,  Mr.  Lee  was 
summoned,  by  express,  to  his  home  in  Virginia,  on  account  of  illness  in  his 
family,  and  for  that  reason  he  was  not  a  member  of  that  committee.  He  after- 
ward affixed  his  signature  to  the  Declaration,  and  thus  became  one  of  the  im- 
mortal Fifty-Six.  He  was  active  in  Congress,  in  tho  Virginia  Assembly,  or  in 
the  field  at  the  head  of  militia,  until  the  close  of  the  war.  In  1783,  he  was  again 
elected  to  Congress,  and  was  chosen  president  of  that  body.  He  was  opposed 
to  the  Federal  Constitution,  because  he  reverenced  State  rights ;  but,  like  Patrick 
Henry,  he  yielded  cheerful  acquiescence  when  it  became  the  organic  law  of  the 
Republic.  He  was  chosen  the  first  United  States  Senator,  from  Virginia,  under 
it,  and  held  that  office  until  the  infirmities  of  premature  age  compelled  him  to 
retire  to  private  life,  at  his  beautiful  seat  at  Chantilly,  in  his  native  county.  Ho 
was  greatly  beloved  by  his  relatives,  friends,  and  the  whole  people,  and  he  was 
sincerely  mourned  by  the  nation,  at  his  death.  Mr.  Lee  went  to  his  rest  on  the 
19 th  of  June,  1794,  when  in  tho  sixty-third  year  of  his  age. 


JOSIAH     Q1JINCY,    JR. 

"  T  ET  mo  tell  you  one  very  serious  truth,  in  which  we  are  all  agreed;  your 
JJ  countrymen  must  seal  their  cause  with  their  blood."  So  wrote  a  young 
man  of  thirty,  from  London,  toward  the  close  of  1774.  He  was  Josiah  Quincy, 
junior,  grandson  of  Judge  Edmund  Quincy,  and  the  child  of  a  wealthy  Boston 
merchant.  He  was  born  in  Braintree,  Massachusetts,  on  the  23d  of  February, 
1744.  Eagerness  for  knowledge,  and  assiduity  in  study,  marked  his  whole  col- 
legiate career  in  Harvard  University;  and  when  he  was  graduated,  in  1763,  ho 
entered  upon  the  study  of  the  law,  under  Oxenbridge  Thacher,  of  Boston,  with 
equal  eagerness.  After  two  years'  close  study,  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  and 
was  soon  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  promising  young  men  in  the  profession. 
His  attention  was  soon  drawn  to  the  agitation  of  the  political  waters  of  his 


1.  At  that  time,  a  son  of  Mr.  Lee  was  at  school  at  St.   Bees,  in  England.     One  day,  while  standing 
near  his  tutor,  a  gentleman  asked,  "What  boy  is  this?"     The  professor  replied,  "  He  is  the  son  of  Richard 
Ileury  Lee,  of  America."    The  gentleman  put  his  hand  upon  the  boy's  head,  and  said,  "  We  shall  yet 
sea  your  father's  head  upon  Tower  Hill."     The  boy  promptly  answered,  "You  may  have  it  when  you 
can  get  it."    That  boy  was  the  late  Ludwell  Lee,  Esq.,  of  Virginia. 

2.  The  resolution  was  adopted  on  the  2d  of  July,  but  tho  Declaration  was  debated  until  the  4th,  and 
then  agreed  to. 


188  JOSIAH  QUINCY,   JR. 


country,  and  as  early  as  1767,  he  began  to  write  political  essays  in  favor  cf 
popular  liberty.  From  that  time,  Otis  and  Quiucy  were  the  boldest  denunciators 
of  the  oppressive  measures  of  Great  Britain.1  He  was  the  colleague  of  John 
Adams  in  defending  Captain  Preston  and  others  after  the  "Boston  Massacre,"  in 
1770,  and  eloquently  pleaded  their  cause.2  During  the  three  years  of  compar- 
ative quiet,  after  that  event,  he  pursued  his  avocations  in  the  law  with  great 
assiduity;  but  early  in  1773,  a  pulmonary  disease  compelled  him  to  seek  relief 
in  a  warmer  climate.  He  visited  Charleston  and  several  places  in  North  Car- 
olina, everywhere  mingling  with  the  most  ardent  friends  of  freedom.3  On  his 
return  home  he  was  active  in  the  movements  which  resulted  in  the  destruction 
of  tea  in  Boston  Harbor.4  He  wrote  several  powerful  papers,  the  most  important 
of  which  was  signed  "Marchmont  Nedham."  He  also  published,  in  1774,  severe 
strictures  on  the  Boston  Port  Bill,5  which  included  Thoughts  on  Civil  Society  and 
a  Standing  Army. 

For  the  double  purpose  of  seeking  renewed  health  and  to  serve  his  country 
in  the  dark  hour  of  its  trial,  he  secretly  embarked  for  London,  in  September, 
1774,  and  at  once  obtained  interviews  with  the  ministry  and  the  leading  men 
of  both  parties.  He  attended  the  debates  in  parliament,  took  full  notes  of  all 
current  political  events,  and  kept  his  friends  in  America  advised  of  all  important 
movements  in  which  they  were  concerned.  He  became  thoroughly  convinced 
of  the  necessity  for  his  countrymen  to  prepare  for  war,  and  in  less  than  two 
months  after  his  arrival  in  England,  he  expressed  the  sentiment  quoted  at  the 
opening  of  this  memoir.  After  becoming  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  dis- 
positions and  intentions  of  the  king  and  his  ministers,  and  hopeless  of  reconcili- 
ation, Mr.  Quincy  resolved  to  return  home,  and,  if  his  health  would  permit,  to 
arouse  his  countrymen  to  immediate  and  powerful  action.  He  embarked  for 
Boston,  in  March,  1775,  with  a  heart  big  with  revolution,  and  a  brain  teeming 
with  noble  ideas  and  dreams  of  the  glorious  future  of  his  beloved  country.  He 
had  said  to  Dr.  Franklin,  on  parting,  '*  New  England  alone  can  hold  out  for  ages 
against  Great  Britain,  and,  if  they  were  firm  and  united,  in  seven  years  they 
would  conquer  them."  But  Providence  did  not  permit  him  to  realize  any  of  his 
aspirations,  nor  again  to  set  his  feet  upon  his  native  shores.  He  was  blessed 
with  the  sight  of  his  dear  land,  but  before  the  vessel  reached  the  port  of  Glou- 
cester, the  tooth  of  consumption  destroyed  the  thread  of  life,  and  he  expired. 
It  was  on  the  26th  of  April,  1775,  when  he  was  about  thirty-one  years  of  age. 
His  son,  then  a  little  child,  has  erected  a  noble  monument  to  the  memory  of  his 
father,  by  writing  and  publishing  a  record  of  his  life. 

1.  In  17C8,  he  asked,  "  Shall  we  hesitate  a  moment  in  preferring  death  to  a  miserable  existence  in 
bondage?"     And,  In  1770,  he  boldly  ^ajd,  "  I  wish  to  see  my  countrymen  break  ofl: — off  forever  ! — all 
social  intercourse  with  those  whose  commerce  contaminates,  whose  luxuries  poison,  whose  avarice  is 
insatiable,  and  whose  unnatural  oppressions  are  not  to  be  borne." 

2.  See  note  on  page  87. 

3.  See  sketches  of  Harnett  and  Howe. 

4.  On  the  day  when  the  destruction  of  the  tea  occurred,  a  great  concourse  of  people  were  assembled 
at  the  "  Old  South  Meeting-house,"  and  were  harangued  by  young  Quincy.     "  It  is  not,  Mr.  Moderator," 
he  said,  "  the  spirit  that  vapors  within  these  walls,  that  must  stand  us  in  stead.     The  exertions  of  this 
day  will  call  forth  events  which  will  make  a  very  different  spirit  necessary  for  our  salvation.    Whoever 
supposes  that  shouts  and  hosannahs  will  terminate  the  trials  of  this  day,  entertains  a  childish  fancy. 
He  must  be  grossly  ignorant  of  the  importance  and  value  of  the  prize  for  which  we  contend  ;  we  must 
be  equally  ignorant  of  the  power  of  those  who  have  combined  .against  us.     We  must  be  blind  to  that 
malice,  inveteracy  and  insatiable  revenge  which  actuate  our  enemies,  public  and  private,  abroad  and  in 
our  bosoms,  to  hope  that  we  shall  end  this  controversy  without  the  sharpest,  the  sharpest  conflicts — to 
flatter  ourselves  that  popular  resolves,  popular  harangues,  popular  acclamations,  and  popular  vapor, 
will  vanquish  our  foes.    Let  us  consider  the  issue.    Let  us  look  to  the  end.    Let  us  weigh  and  consider 
before  we  advance  to  those  measures  which  must  bring  on  the  most  trying  and  terrible  struggle  this 
country  ever  saw."    When  he  concluded,  the  question  was  put  whether  the  people  would  allow  Ihe  tea 
to  be  landed.     As  with  one  voice,  the  multitude  said,  No  !    At  twilight,  a  voice  in  the  church  gallery 
shouted,  "  Boston  harbor  a  tea-pot  to-night !"     A  man  disguised  as  an  Indian  gave  a  war-whoop,  and 
the  people  rushed  to  the  wharf.     A  pale  moon  was  shining  upon  the  snow.     In  a  short  time  three  hundred 
and  forty-two  ches»s  of  tea  were  broke  open,  and  their  contents  were  cast  into  the  water. 

5.  See  note  2,  page  165. 


PHILIP   SCHUYLER. 


189 


PHILIP    SCHUYLER. 

T)URE  patriotism,  unselfish  benevolence,  unflinching  integrity,  and  unwavering 
L  public  and  private  virtue,  were  the  marked  characteristics  of  Philip  Schuyler, 
a  grandson  of  the  valiant  mayor  of  Albany,  in  1690,  when  the  scouts  of  Fron- 
tenac  alarmed  all  the  border  settlers  of  New  York,  and  French  and  Indians  laid 
Schenectada  in  ashes.  Philip  was  born  at  Albany,  on  the  22d  of  November, 
1733.  He  was  the  oldest  child  of  his  parents,  and  by  the  law  of  primogeniture, 
he  inherited  his  father's  real  estate.  That  parent  died  while  Philip  was  young, 
and  he  was  left  to  the  care  of  his  mother.  With  that  noble  generosity  which 
marked  his  career  through  life,  he  divided  the  estate,  to  which  he  was  entitled, 
equally  with  his  brothers  and  sisters.  At  the  age  of  twenty-two  years,  he  en- 
tered the  provincial  army,  and  commanded  a  company  under  Sir  "William  John- 
son, at  Fort  Edward  and  Lake  George.  He  continued  in  the  service  until  1758, 
and  accompanied  the  young  Lord  Howe,  as  colonel  of  a  regiment,  in  the  expe- 
dition against  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point.  When  that  nobleman  was  killed, 


190  JOSEPH  WARREN. 


Colonel  Scliujlor  conveyed  Iris  body  to  Albany,  for  interment.1  After  the  peace 
in  1763,  he  was  quite  active  in  several  civil  capacities;  and  as  member  of  the 
Colonial  Assembly  of  New  York,  he  was  marked  for  his  devotion  to  the  cause 
of  the  colonists.  He  was  a  member  of  the  second  Continental  Congress,  in  1775, 
and  was  appointed  by  that  body  the  third  of  the  four  major-generals,  under 
"Washington,  commissioned  for  the  command  of  the  American  army.  He  took 
command  of  the  Northern  Department,  and  started  with  a  considerable  force  to 
invade  Canada,  in  the  Autumn  of  1775.  He  sickened  on  Lake  Champlain,  placed 
the  chief  command  in  the  hands  of  his  lieutenant,  General  Montgomery,  and  re- 
turned to  Albany.  During  the  following  year  he  was  active  among  the  Six 
Nations  of  Indians,  and  also  in  perfecting  the  discipline  of  his  Division  of  the 
army.  In  March,  1777,  he  was  superseded  by  General  Gates,  without  any  good 
reason,  but  was  reinstated  in  May  following.  In  June,  Burgoyne  penetrated 
the  northern  frontier,  and  General  Schuyler  was  active  in  preparations  to  check 
his  invasion.  At  the  moment  when  all  was  ready  to  strike  a  decisive  blow, 
Gates  was  again  placed  in  command,  and  unfairly  received  the  laurels  of  con- 
quest. Schuyler's  love  for  his  country  was  stronger  than  his  resentment,  and 
as  a  simple  citizen  ho  aided  the  Americans  greatly  in  the  accomplishment  of  the 
victory  over  Burgoyne,  at  Saratoga.  He  demanded  and  obtained  a  trial  before 
a  court  of  inquiry,  and  received  a  highly  flattering  verdict.  Washington  then 
urged  him  to  accept  military  command,  but  he  preferred  to  aid  his  country  in  a 
less  public  but  not  less  efficient  way.  He  was  a  member  of  Congress  under  the 
first  confederation,  and  after  the  ratification  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  the 
legislature  of  New  York  chose  General  Schuyler,  with  Rufus  King,  to  represent 
that  commonwealth  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  He  served  until  1791, 
when  he  was  elected  to  the  Senate  of  his  native  State.  He  was  again  chosen 
United  States  Senator,  in  place  of  Aaron  Burr,  in  1797,  but  did  not  retain  his 
seat  long,  for  his  health  was  failing.  In  1803,  his  wife,  the  companion  of  all  his 
joys  and  sorrows,  died;  and,  in  July,  1804,  his  spirit  was  terribly  smitten  by 
the  murder  of  his  accomplished  son-in-law,  Alexander  Hamilton,  by  the  duellist's 
hand.  2 


JOSEPH    WARREN. 

"  \[OT  all  the  havoc  and  devastation  they  have  made  has  wounded  me  like  the 
1M  death  of  Warren,"  wrote  the  wife  of  John  Adams  three  weeks  after  the 
battle  of  Bunker  Hill.  "We  want  him  in  the  Senate;  we  want  him  in  his  pro- 
fession ;  we  want  him  in  the  field.  We  mourn  for  the  citizen,  the  senator,  the 
physician,  and  the  warrior."  The  death  of  Joseph  Warren  was  indeed  a  severe 
blow  to  the  patriot  cause.  He  was  the  son  of  a  Massachusetts  farmer,  and  was 
born  in  Roxbury,  near  Boston,  in  1740.  He  was  graduated  at  Harvard  College, 
in  1759,  and  then  commenced  the  study  of  medicine.  Soon  after  commencing 
its  practice,  he  took  a  prominent  place  in  the  profession,  in  Boston  ;  and  he  had 
few  superiors,  when  inclination  called  him  to  participate  in  the  political  move- 
ments of  the  day.  Patriotism  was  a  ruling  emotion  of  his  heart,  and  he  never 
lacked  boldness  to  express  his  opinions  freely.  He  was  one  of  the  earliest 
members  of  the  association,  in  Boston,  known  as  Sons  of  Liberty;  and  from  1768 
until  the  fierce  kindling  of  war  on  Breed's  Hill,  he  was  extremely  efficient  in 

1.  As  an  example  for  his  men,  Lord  Howe  had  his  hair  cut  short,  that  it  might  not  become  wet  and 
produce  colds  in  the  region  of  the  neck.     Many  years  after  the  interment  of  his  remains  at  Albany,  they 
were  removed,  and  it  was  found  that  his  hair  had  grown  several  inches,  and  was  smooth  and  glossy. 

2.  See  sketch  of  Alexander  Hamilton. 


ZEBULON  MONTGOMERY  PIKE.  191 

fostering  a  spirit  of  rational  liberty  and  independence  among  the  people.  His 
suggestive  mind  planned  many  daring  schemes  in  secret  caucus,  and  he  was 
ever  ready  to  lead  in  the  execution  of  any  measures  for  resisting  the  encroachments 
of  imperial  power.  He  delivered  the  first  annual  oration  on  the  subject  of  the 
"Boston  Massacre,"  in  1771;  and,  in  1775,  he  solicited  the  honor  of  performing 
the  perilous  service  again,  because  some  British  officers  had  menaced  the  life  of 
anyone  who  should  attempt  it.  The  "  Old  South  "  was  crowded,  and  the  aisles, 
stairs,  and  pulpit,  were  filled  with  British  soldiers,  full  armed.  The  intrepid 
young  orator  entered  by  a  window,  spoke  fearlessly,  in  the  presence  of  those 
bayonets  which  seemed  alive  with  threats,  of  the  early  struggles  of  the  colonies 
of  New  England,  and  then,  in  sorrowful  tones  and  deep  pathos  of  expression, 
told  of  the  wrongs  and  oppressions  under  which  they  were  then  suffering.  Even 
the  soldiers  wept ;  and  thus  the  young  hero,  firm  in  the  faith  that  "resistance  to 
tyrants  is  obedience  to  God,"  triumphed,  and  fearlessly  bearded  the  lion  in  his 
den.  From  that  day  Gage  regarded  him  as  a  dangerous  man. 

When  John  Hancock  went  to  the  Continental  Congress,  Warren  was  chosen 
to  fill  his  place  as  president  of  the  Massachusetts  Provincial  Assembly.  He  held 
that  position  when  the  skirmishes  at  Lexington  and  Concord  occurred ;  and 
before  and  after  the  events  of  that  day,  he  was  very  active,  secret  and  open. 
Four  days  before  the  battle  of  Bunker's  Hill,  he  was  commissioned  a  major- 
general.  He  hastened  to  Breed's  Hill,  on  the  memorable  17th  of  June,  1775, 
and  toward  the  close  of  the  action,  placed  himself  under  Colonel  Prescott,  as  a 
volunteer.  When  the  Americans  were  compelled  to  retreat,  Warren  and  Pres- 
cott were  the  last  men  to  leave  the  redoubt.  He  had  proceeded  but  a  short 
way  toward  Bunker's  Hill,  where  Putnam  was  trying  to  rally  the  fugitives,  when 
a  musket  ball  passed  through  his  head,  and  killed  him  instantly.  He  was  left 
on  the  field.  His  body  was  recognised  the  next  day  by  his  intimate  acquaint- 
ance, Dr.  Jeffries,  of  the  British  army,  and  it  was  buried  where  it  fell.  After 
the  British  left  Boston,  in  the  Spring  of  1776,  it  was  taken  up,  carried  to  the 
city,  and  interred  with  masonic  and  military  honors,  beneath  St.  Paul's  church. 
Almost  upon  the  spot  where  he  fell,  the  great  Bunker  Hill  monument  now 
stands,  a  memorial  alike  for  the  noble  Warren,  and  of  the  deeds  which  con- 
secrated that  eminence.  Congress  expressed  its  sorrow  by  resolutions,  and  its 
gratitude  by  ordering  that  his  "eldest  son  be  educated  at  the  expense  of  the 
United  States."  Congress  also  ordered  a  monument  to  be  erected.  It  yet  re- 
mains to  be  done. 


ZEBULON  MONTGOMERY  PIKE. 

ONE  of  the  earliest  explorers  of  the  wilderness  around  the  head  waters  of  the 
Mississippi,  now  known  as  the  Minnesota  Territory,  was  the  brave  Pike, 
who  died  in  the  hour  of  victory  near  York,  in  Upper  Canada,  with  the  captured 
British  flag  under  his  head.  He  was  the  son  of  an  officer  in  the  United  States 
army,  and  was  born  at  Lamberton,  New  Jersey,  on  the  5th, of  January,  1779. 
lie  entered  the  army  while  yet  a  mere  boy,  and  his  whole  life  was  devoted  to 
the  military  profession.  He  was  early  subjected  to  athletic  exercises,  and  he 
grew  to  manhood  with  a  frame  of  uncommon  vigor.  His  education  was  neglected, 
but  by  his  own  exertions  he  mastered  the  Latin,  French,  and  Spanish  languages. 
Love  of  study  was  a  characteristic  of  his  early  youth,  and  he  read  with  avidity 
the  few  books  that  foil  in  his  way.  Soon  after  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  from 
the  French,  in  1803,  the  United  States  government  determined  to  explore  that 
vast  and  mostly  unknown  territory.  Under  the  enlightened  direction  of  Pres- 


192  DANIEL  BOONE. 


ident  Jefferson,  Captains  Lewis  and  Clarke  were  sent  to  explore  the  Missouri  to 
its  source,  and  young  Pike  was  commissioned  to  make  a  similar  exploration  in 
search  of  the  sources  of  the  Mississippi.  He  left  St.  Louis,  in  August,  1805,  with 
twenty  men,  and  made  a  most  wonderful  journey,  during  eight  months  and 
twenty  days,  an  account  of  which  was  published  in  an  octavo  volume.1  Soon 
after  his  return,  General  Wilkinson  selected  Pike  to  command  another  expedi- 
tion in  the  interior  of  Louisiana,  in  the  direction  of  Northern  Mexico.  After 
great  sufferings,  he  returned,  in  the  Summer  of  1807,  and  received  the  thanks 
of  Congress.  Passing  through  several  promotions,  in  military  rank,  he  reached 
that  of  colonel  of  infantry,  in  1810.  Ho  was  stationed  on  the  northern  frontier 
at  the  commencement  of  the  war  with  Great  Britain,  in  1812,  and  early  the 
following  year  he  was  promoted  to  brigadier.  In  the  Spring  of  1813,  he  was 
chosen,  by  General  Dearborn,  to  command  the  land  troops  hi  an  expedition 
against  York  (now  Toronto),  the  capital  of  Upper  Canada.  He  sailed  from 
Sackett's  Harbor,  in  a  squadron  under  Commodore  Chaunccy,  on  the  25th  of 
April,  and  on  the  27th  he  landed,  with  seventeen  hundred  men,  in  the  face  of  a 
galling  fire  from  a  large  force  of  British  and  Indians.  Pike  pressed  forward,  and 
the  British  fled  to  their  fortifications,  while  the  Indians  scattered  in  all  directions. 
The  general  led  his  troops  in  person,  and  after  capturing  a  battery,  he  rushed 
forward  toward  the  main  works.  The  British  fired  their  magazine,  and  a  ter- 
rible explosion  took  place.  A  heavy  stone  struck  the  breast  of  the  brave  leader, 
and  wounded  him  mortally.  He  was  conveyed  to  the  commodore's  ship,  in  a 
dying  condition.  While  on  the  way,  there  was  a  shout,  and  one  of  his  attend- 
ants said,  "  The  British  union  jack  is  coming  down,  and  the  stars  are  going  up !" 
Pike  could  not  speak,  but  sighed  heavily,  and  then  smiled.  He  lingered  a  few 
hours  on  ship-board ;  and  when  the  British  flag  was  brought  to  him,  he  signified 
his  desire  to  have  it  placed  under  his  head.  It  was  done,  and  a  moment  after- 
ward the  hero  died.  He  was  only  a  little  more  than  thirty-four  years  of  age. 
His  name  and  memory  is  perpetuated,  not  only  in  his  country's  annals,  but  by 
the  titles  of  ten  counties  and  twenty-eight  townships  and  villages,  chiefly  in  tho 
Western  country. 


DANIEL,    BOONE. 

FEW  men  of  such  humble  pretensions  occupy  so  large  a  space  in  history,  as 
Daniel  Boone.  His  heroism  as  an  explorer,  pioneer,  settler,  and  patriotic 
defender  of  the  soil  he  had  won  by  his  courage  in  the  path  of  the  discoverer, 
partakes  so  largely  of  the  spirit  of  chivalry  and  true  romance,  that  we  incon- 
tinently look  upon  him  with  a  sentiment  of  hero-worship.  Daniel  Boone  was 
born  in  Bucks  county,  Pennsylvania,  in  1734.  His  parents  were  from  Bradninch, 
near  Exeter,  England ;  and  while  Daniel  was  a  small  boy,  they  left  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  settled  near  the  banks  of  the  Yadkin,  in  North  Carolina.  At  that 
time  the  region  beyond  the  Blue  Ridge  was  an  unknown  wilderness  to  the 
white  people,  for  none  had  ventured  thither,  as  far  as  is  known,  until  about  the 
year  1750.  It  was  almost  twenty  years  later  than  this,  when  Boone  was  ap- 
proaching the  prime  of  life,  that  he  first  penetrated  the  great  Valley  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi, in  company  with  others.  He  had  already,  as  a  bold  hunter,  been  within 
the  eastern  verge  of  the  present  Kentucky,  but  now  he  took  a  long  "hunt,"  of 

1.  Lieutenant  Pike  did  not  discover  the  true  source  of  1he  Mississippi.  Thrxt  achievement  •was  reserved 
for  Henry  K.  Schoolcraft,  who,  in  1832,  discovered  the  chief  fountain  of  the  Father  of  Waters  to  be  Itaska 
Lake,  in  latitude  47  deg.,  13min.,  35  sec.,  north,  and  that  its  whole  majestic  course  is  within  the  territory 
of  the  United  States. 


DANIEL   BOONE. 


193 


about  three  years.  He  had  made  himself  familiar  with  the  wilderness ;  and,  in 
1773,  in  company  with  other  families,  he  started  with  his  own  to  make  a  settle- 
ment on  the  Kain-tuck-ee  river.  The  hostile  Indians  compelled  them  to  fall  back, 
and  Boone  resided  on  the  Clerich  river  until  1775,  when  he  went  forward  and 
planted  the  settlement  of  Boonesborough,  in  the  present  Madison  county,  Ken- 
tucky.1 There  he  built  a  log  fort,  and  in  the  course  of  three  or  four  years,  sev- 
eral other  settlers  joined  him.  His  wife  and  daughters  were  the  first  white 
women  ever  seen  upon  the  banks  of  the  Kentucky  river.  He  became  a  great 
annoyance  to  the  Indians ;  and  while  at  the  Blue  Licks,  on  the  Licking  piver,  in 
February,  1778,  engaged  with  others  in  making  salt,  he  was  captured  by  some 
Shawnee  warriors  from  the  Ohio  country,  and  taken  to  Chillicothe.  The  Indians 
became  attached  to  him,  and  he  was  adopted  into  a  family  as  a  son.  A  ransom 
of  five  hundred  dollars  was  offered  for  him,  but  the  Indians  refused  it.  He  at 
length  escaped  (in  July  following  his  capture)  when  he  ascertained  that  a  large 
body  of  Indians  were  preparing  to  march  against  Boonesborough.  They  attacked 
that  station  three  times  before  the  middle  of  September,  but  were  repulsed. 

1.  On  the  14th  of  July,  1776,  one  of  Boone's  daughters,  and  two  other  girls,  were  seized  by  the  Indians, 
while  they  were  in  a  boat,  near  Boonesborough,  and  carried  away.  Their  screams  alarmed  the  people 
at  the  fort,  and  Boone  and  others  started  in  pursuit.  It  was  then  just  at  sunset.  They  came  up  with 
the  kidnappers  on  the  16th,  about  forty  miles  from  Booncsborough,  rescued  the  girls,  and  conveyed  them 
safely  back  to  their  home: 

9 


194  ANDREW   PICKENS. 


During  Boone's  captivity,  his  wife  and  children  had  returned  to  the  house  of  her 
father,  on  the  Yadkin,  where  the  pioneer  visited  them  in  1779,  and  remained 
with  them  for  many  months.  He  returned  to  Kentucky,  in  1780,  with  his  family, 
and  assisted  Colonel  Clarke  in  his  operations  against  the  Indians  in  the  Illinois 
country.  He  was  a  very  active  partisan  in  that  far-off  region  beyond  the  Al- 
leghanies  until  the  close  of  the  war.  From  that  time,  until  1798,  he  resided  al- 
ternately in  Kentucky  and  in  "Western  Virginia.  He  had  seen  that  ''wilderness 
blossom  as  the  rose;"  and  in  less  than  twenty  years  from  the  time  when  he 
built  his  fort  at  Boonesborough,  he  saw  Kentucky  honored  as  a  sovereign  State 
of  an  independent  union  of  republics.  Yet  he  was  doomed  to  lose  all  personal 
advantages  in  the  growth  of  the  new  State.  Neglecting  to  comply  with  new 
land  laws,  of  whose  details  he  was  probably  ignorant,  he  lost  his  title  to  lands 
which  he  had  discovered  and  subdued;  and  the  region  which  so  recently  seemed 
all  his  own,  now  filled  with  half  a  million  of  his  fellow-citizens,  afforded  him  no 
home  in  fee  simple!  Indignant  at  what  he  considered  base  ingratitude,  he 
shouldered  his  rifle,  left  Kentucky  forever,  and,  with  some  followers,  plunged 
into  the  interminable  forests  of  the  present  Missouri,  beyond  the  Mississippi  river. 
They  settled  upon  the  Little  Osage,  in  1799,  and  the  following  year,  Boone  and 
his  companions  explored  the  head  waters  of  the  Arkansas.  A  long  time  after- 
ward, when  he  was  almost  eighty  years  of  age,  he  trapped  beavers  on  the  Great 
Osage.  Soon  after  his  return  from  that  "hunt,"  he  sent  a  memorial  to  the  legis- 
lature of  Kentucky,  setting  forth  that  he  owned  not  an  acre  of  land  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  had  nowhere  to  lay  his  head,  and  asked  a  confirmation  of  title  to 
lands  given  him  in  Louisiana,  by  the  Spanish  governor,  before  that  territory  was 
ceded  to  the  United  States.  Congress  secured  two  thousand  acres  to  him,  and 
so  his  old  age  was  made  comparatively  happy  by  the  prospect  of  a  grave  in  the 
bosom  of  his  own  soil.  The  brave  old  hero  died  in  Missouri,  on  the  26th  of 
September,  1820,  at  the  age  of  almost  ninety  years.  His  remains  now  lie  beside 
those  of  his  wife,  in  a  cemetery  at  Frankfort,  Kentucky. 


ANDREW    PICKENS. 

/CELTIC  blood  flowed  in  the  veins  of  very  many  of  the  sages  and  soldiers  who 
\J  laid  the  foundations  of  our  Republic.  In  those  of  Pickens,  the  eminent 
partisan  soldier  of  South  Carolina,  it  was  unmixed,  for  his  parents  were  both 
natives  of  that  portion  of  Ireland  where  there  had  been  no  infusion  of  the  English 
or  Scotch  element.  He  was  born  in  Paxton  township,  Bucks  county,  Pennsyl- 
vania, on  the  19th  of  September,  1739,  and  while  he  was  yet  a  child,  his  parents 
emigrated  to  the  Waxhaw  settlement,  in  the  upper  part  of  South  Carolina.  His 
first  military  lessons,  in  actual  service,  were  received  while  serving  as  a  volun- 
teer under  lieutenant-colonel  Grant,  against  the  Cherokees,  in  1761,  having  for 
his  companions,  Marion  and  Moultrie.  He  was  a  warm  republican ;  and  when 
the  war  of  the  Revolution  was  kindled,  he  took  the  field  as  captain  of  militia. 
His  zeal,  courage,  and  skill,  immediately  attracted  attention,  and  he  arose  rapidly 
to  the  rank  of  brigadier-general.  In  the  region  watered  by  the  Savannah,  in 
both  Georgia  and  South  Carolina,  General  Pickens  performed  very  important 
services  during  the  war,  especially  in  the  year  1781.  He  completely  humbled  the 
Cherokees  and  the  Creeks ;  broke  the  power  of  the  Tories  in  the  upper  country 
around  Augusta ;  and  was  distinguished  for  bravery  at  the  Cowpens,  the  siege 
of  Augusta,  and  at  Eutaw  Springs.  He  and  Marion  commanded  the  militia  of 
South  Carolina  in  the  latter  engagement,  and  in  the  early  part  of  the  conflict, 


FRANCIS   ASBUEY.  105 


Pickens  was  severely  wounded  by  a  musket  ball.  From  the  close  of  the  war 
until  1794,  he  was  continually  in  public  life,  chiefly  as  a  legislator,  and  then  ho 
was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States.  Ho 
was  also  appointed  one  of  the  two  major-generals  of  the  militia  of  his  State;  and 
in  1796,  he  declined  a  reelection  to  Congress,  but  took  a  seat  in  the  legislature 
of  South  Carolina.  He  held  that  position  until  1801,  at  the  same  time  often 
acting  as  commissioner  to  treat  with  the  Indians,  Washington  had  also  solicited 
him  to  accept  the  command  of  a  brigade  of  light  troops  to  act  under  Wayne 
against  the  tribes  of  the  North-west,  but  he  declined  the  honor.  He  retired  to 
private  life,  in  1801,  and  there  he  remained  in  the  peaceful  repose  of  a  planter, 
in  Pendleton  District,  South  Carolina,  until  1812,  when  he  accepted  a  seat  iu 
his  State  legislature.  He  declined  the  proffered  office  of  governor  the  following- 
year,  and  again  sought  repose  in  the  bosom  of  his  family.  There  he  went  to  his 
final  rest,  on  the  17th  of  August,  1817,  at  the  age  of  seventy -eight  years.  Gen- 
eral Pickens  married  Rebecca  Calhoun,  in  17G5.  They  lived  together  fifty  years. 
She  was  aunt  of  the  late  John  C.  Calhoun;  and  at  the  time  of  her  marriage  was 
considered  one  of  the  most  beautiful  young  ladies  in  the  South.  Her  nuptials 
were  attended  by  a  great  number  of  relatives  and  friends,  and  "  Rebecca  Cal- 
houn's  wedding "  became  an  epoch  in  the  social  history  of  the  district,  from 
which  old  people  used  to  reckon.  The  remains  of  husband  and  wife  lie  together 
in  the  grave-yard  of  the  "old  stone  meeting-house,"  in  Pendleton. 


FRANCIS    ASBUilY. 

T)ERHAPS  no  Christian  minister,  since  the  settlement  of  America,  has  travelled 
A.  as  extensively,  and  labored  as  untiringly  in  the  face  of  every  kind  of  ob- 
stacle, as  Francis  Asbury,  the  senior  Bishop  of  the  Methodist  Church1  in  the 
United  States.  He  was  born  near  Birmingham,  England,  on  the  20th  of  August, 
1745,  and  came  to  America,  in  1771,  at  the  age  of  twenty-six  years,  as  a  preacher 
of  the  gospel  in  the  simplicity  of  the  new  sect.  Two  years  afterward,  the  first 
annual  conference  of  the  American  Methodists  was  held  at  Philadelphia.  The 
converts  under  the  preaching  of  John  and  Charles  Wesley  had  widened  the 
circle  of  the  denomination  greatly,  and  at  that  conference  there  were  ten  preachers, 
representing  a  membership  of  about  eleven  hundred.  Mr.  Asbury  continued  to 
travel  and  preach  continually  from  that  time  until  1784,  when  Dr.  Coke,  whom 
Mr.  Wesley  had  appointed  a  presbyter  of  the  church  in  England,  and  missionary 
to  America,  consecrated  him  a  superintendent  or  Bishop  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  in  the  United  States.  With  the  zeal  of  an  ancient  apostle,  ho 
entered  upon  the  discharge  of  his  great  duties,  and  visited  and  organized  churches, 
and  planted  others,  in  all  parts  of  the  republic.  In  1790,  ho  crossed  the  great 
mountains,  and  held  a  conference  five  miles  from  the  present  Lexington.  It 
was  the  first  general  assemblage  of  the  Methodists  in  the  wilderness  of  the  West. 
That  conference  then  numbered  only  twelve  preachers.  They  were  "indiffer- 
ently clad,"  said  Bishop  Asbury,  "with  emaciated  bodies,  and  subject  to  hard 
fare,  but,  I  hope,  rich  in  faith." 

1.  This  sect  was  founded,  in  1729,  by  John  Wesley  and  a  minister  named  Morgan.  Their  doctrine  is 
the  same  as  that  of  the  Church  of  England,  but  they  discarded  most  of  its  rituals.  They  adhere  to  the 
Episcopal  form  of  church  governmenl,  though  varying  somewhat  from  the  Church  of  England  in  its 
administration.  The  name,  as  applied  to  a  religious  sect,  is  older  than  the  organization  of  Wesley  and 
others.  It  was  given  to  two  kinds  of  Popish  Doctors  of  Divinity,  in  France,  about  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  who  violently  opposed  the  Huguenots.  In  England,  it  was  applied  to  those  church 
members  who  were  evangelical  in  their  views,  and  zealous  in  their  preaching.  Methodism  has  been 
well  defined  by  an  English  writer,  as  "  Christianity  in  earnest." 


196  JOHN   TKUMBULL. 


From  the  time  of  his  consecration  until  his  death,  a  period  of  thirty-two  years, 
Bishop  Asbury  travelled  yearly  through  every  State  in  the  increasing  Union, 
and  kept  in  efficient  action  the  great  machinery  of  the  travelling  connection.  In 
the  exercise  of  his  episcopal  office,  ho  ordained  not  less,  probably,  than  threo 
thousand  preachers,  and  uttered  seventeen  thousand  sermons.  After  spending 
fifty -five  years  in  the  ministry  (forty-five  in  America),  that  faithful  servant  of 
Christ  was  called  to  his  rest,  at  the  house  of  his  old  friend,  George  Arnold,  in 
Virginia,  on  the  31st  of  March,  1816,  in  the  seventy-first  year  of  his  age.  His 
remains,  by  order  of  the  General  Conference,  were  taken  to  Baltimore,  and  de- 
posited in  a  vault  prepared  for  the  purpose  under  the  recess  of  the  pulpit  of  the 
Methodist  Church  in  Eutaw  Street. 


JOHN    TRUMBU1.L. 

'PHE  name  of  Trumbull,  the  painter, '  like  Trumbull,  the  magistrate,  will  ever  be 
JL  associated  with  the  noblest  chapter  of  American  history,  because  his  pencil 
illustrated  its  noblest  events.  The  painter  was  the  youngest  son  of  the  magis- 
trate, and  was  born  at  Lebanon,  Connecticut,  on  the  6th  of  June,  1*756.  After 
receiving  an  excellent  education  at  Lebanon,  he  entered  Harvard  College,  where 
he  remained  about  a  }*ear,  and  was  graduated  in  1772.  He  had  early  felt  the 
inspirations  of  art  and  the  aspirations  of  genius ;  and  during  much  of  his  college 
years  at  Harvard,  he  was  studying  books  on  the  subject  of  drawing  and  painting, 
or  was  engaged  in  copying  some  pictures  there.  He  painted  his  first  original 
picture — The  Battle  of  Cannes — soon  after  leaving  college,  and  resolved  to  devote 
his  life  to  art,  when  the  gathering  storm  of  the  Revolution  diverted  him  from 
that  pursuit,  and  caused  him  to  exchange  his  pencil  for  a  sword.  His  father 
wished  him  to  become  a  clergyman,  but  the  church  militant  had  not  for  him  the 
charms  of  martial  life,  and  he  became  adjutant  of  the  first  Connecticut  regiment, 
which  was  stationed  at  Roxbury,  in  the  Summer  of  1775.  A  drawing  which 
he  made  of -the  enemy's  works,  by  request  of  "Washington,  so  pleased  the  com- 
mander-in-chief,  that  ho  made  the  young  painter  his  aicl-de-camp,  in  August. 
He  was  promoted  to  major  of  brigade,  in  the  Autumn,  and  in  that  capacity  ho 
attracted  the  attention  of  adjutant-general  Gates.  He  was  appointed,  by  Gates, 
adjutant-general  of  the  Northern  Department,  with  the  title  of  Colonel,  in  June, 
1776,  and  accompanied  that  officer  to  Ticonderoga.  Ho  did  not  receive  his 
commission  from  Congress  until  the  following  Spring,  and  then  it  was  dated  in 
September.  The  young  soldier  was  offended,  and  returned  the  commission  with 
a  spicy  letter  tendering  his  resignation.  Then  ended  his  military  career,  and  he 
went  to  Boston  to  resume  the  study  of  art.  In  1780,  he  sailed  for  London,  to 
place  himself  under  the  instruction  of  Benjamin  "West.  The  great  painter  re- 
ceived him  kindly,  and  Trumbull  was  pursuing  his  studies  quietly,  when,  late  in 
the  year,  he  was  arrested  as  a  rebel,  and  cast  into  prison  on  a  charge  of  treason. 
"West  immediately  interceded  for  him,  before  the  king,  and  received  the  royal 
assurance  that  the  young  painter's  life  should  be  spared.  After  an  imprisonment 
of  eight  months,  he  was  admitted  to  bail  on  condition  that  he  should  quit  the 
country  immediately.  "West  and  Copley  became  his  sureties.  He  went  to 
Amsterdam,  and  then  embarked  for  America,  but  the  ship  was  compelled  to 

1.  The  great  painter  was  a  lineal  descendant  of  Rev.  John  Robinson,  the  "father  of  the  Pilgrims." 
His  mother's  name  was  Faith  Robinson,  and  was  the  fifih  in  descent  from  the  minister  at  Delft.  While 
at  the  house  of  the  late  governor  of  Connecticut,  J.  (1.  W.  Trnmbull,  at  Norwich,  in  1849,  the  writer  was 
shown  a  silver  cup,  bearing  the  initials  of  the  Rev.  Jlr.  Robinson,  which  was  brought  to  America,  in 
1621,  and  has  been  carefully  preserved  in  the  family. 


JOHN  THUMB ULL. 


197 


put  back,  and  he  did  not  reach  home  until  the  beginning  of  1*782.  He  visited 
the  army  on  the  Hudson,  toward  Autumn,  but  peace  soon  came.  His  father 
then  urged  him  to  pursue  the  profession  of  the.  law,  but  the  Artist  would  not 
listen;  and,  in  November,  1783,  he  again  went  to  England,  and  resumed  his 
studies,  under  West,  with  great  zeal,  industry,  and  success.  He  was  so  success- 
ful in  the  treatment  of  Priam  bearing  back  to  his  Palace  the  body  of  Hector,  in 
1785,  that  he  matured  a  plan  for  producing  a  series  of  historical  paintings,  rep- 
resenting events  in  the  American  Revolution,  Before  the  close  of  1786,  he  had 
produced  his  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill  and  Death  of  Montgomery.  These  were  engraved. 
Then  followed  his  superb  painting  The  Sortie  of  the  Garrison  of  Gibraltar,  which 
he  sold  for  twenty-five  hundred  dollars.  He  came  to  America,  in  1789,  and  painted 
as  many  of  the  portraits  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  as  were  then  present 
in  Congress.  In  1791  and  1792,  he  was  chiefly  employed  in  painting  heads  for 
his  four  great  national  pictures,  now  in  the  Rotunda  of  the  capitol,  at  "Washing- 
ton city,  namely,  Signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  Surrender  ofBurgoyne, 
Surrender  of  CornwdlMs,  Washington  Surrendering  his  Commission.  He  then 
went  to  England  as  private  secretary  to  Mr.  Jay.  He  went  to  Paris  and  en- 
gaged in  commercial  pursuits,  for  awhile;  and,  in  August,  1796,  he  was  appointed 
fifth  commissioner  to  carry  out  the  designs  of  one  article  of  Jay's  treaty  with 
Great  Britain.  His  duties  did  not  end  until  1804,  when  he  returned  to  the 
United  States,  and  resumed  his  pencil  at  New  York.  Lacking  encouragement, 


198  THOMAS   PAINE. 


he  again  went  to  England,  and  remained  there  until  1815,  when  he  returned  to 
New  York.  The  following  year  he  received  a  commission  from  our  government 
to  paint  the  four  pictures  above  alluded  to.  He  was  engaged  seven  years  on 
them.  He  was  chosen  president  of  the  American  Academy  of  Arts,  in  1817,  and 
was  annually  elected  to  that  office  for  many  years.  Finding  no  purchasers  for 
his  collection  of  paintings,  he  presented  them  to  Yale  College,  and  they  are  all 
in  New  Haven,  in  a  building  erected  for  the  purpose,  called  The  Trumbull  Gal- 
lery. The  venerable  artist,  soldier,  and  patriot,  died  in  the  city  of  New  York, 
on  the  10th  of  November,  18-43,  in  the  eighty-eighth  year  of  his  age. 


THOMAS    PAINK. 

FEW  men  have  ever  received  so  large  a  share  of  the  odium  of  common  public 
opinion  (which  Hood  denned  as  "  the  average  prejudice  of  mankind  ")  as 
Thomas  Paine,  whose  pen  was  almost  as  powerful  in  support  of  the  republican 
cause  in  the  early  years  of  the  Revolution,  as  was  the  sword  of  Washington ;  be- 
cause it  gave  vitality  to  that  latent  national  sentiment  which  formed  the  necessary 
basis  ot  support  to  the  civil  and  military  power  then  just  evoked  by  the  political 
exigencies  of  the  American  people.  He  was  a  native  of  Thetford,  England, 
where  he  was  born,  in  1737.  He  was  bred  to  the  business  of  stay-maker,  car- 
ried on  by  his  father,  but  his  mind  could  not  long  be  chained  to  the  narrow  em- 
ployment of  fashioning  whale-bone  and  buckram  for  the  boddices  of  ladies.  Ho 
sought  and  obtained  an  interview  with  Dr.  Franklin,  when  that  statesman  first 
went  to  England  as  agent  for  Pennsylvania,  and  by  his  advice  Paine  came  to 
America,  in  1774,  and  at  once  employed  his  powerful  pen  in  the  cause  of  the 
aroused  colonies.  Many  of  his  articles  appeared  in  Pennsylvania  papers,  over 
the  signature  of  Common  Sense;  and  at  the  beginning  of  1776,  he  wrote  a  pam- 
phlet, at  the  suggestion  of  Dr.  Rush,  bearing  that  expressive  title.  It  was  the 
earliest  and  most  powerful  public  appeal  in  favor  of  the  independence  of  the 
colonies,  and  did  more,  probably,  than  any  other  instrumentality,  to  fix  that  idea 
firmly  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  Within  a  hundred  days  after  its  appearance, 
almost  every  provincial  assembly  had  spoken  in  favor  of  independence.1  Paine 
also  commenced  a  series  of  papers  called  The  Crisis,  the  first  number  of  which 
was  written  in  the  camp  of  Washington,  near  the  Delaware,  at  the  close  of  1776. 
They  were  issued  at  intervals,  during  the  Avar.  In  the  Spring  of  1777,  Paine 
was  appointed,  by  Congress,  Secretary  to  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs,  with 
a  salary  of  seventy  dollars  a  month.  It  was  a  position  of  great  trust  and  respon- 
sibility, and  he  performed  the  duties  satisfactorily  until  1779,  when,  in  a  public 
dispute  with  Silas  Deane,  he  revealed  some  secrets  of  his  bureau,  and  was  threat- 
ened with  dismissal.  He  at  once  resigned  his  office,  but  remained  a  firm  friend 
to  his  adopted  country.  After  the  war,  he  used  his  pen  for  a  livelihood ;  and  in 
1790,  he  visited  his  native  country.  There  he  wrote  his  Rights  of  Man,  which 
offended  the  government,  and  he  went  to  Paris  on  the  eve  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution. He  participated  in  the  opening  scenes  of  that  struggle,  was  made  a 
member  of  the  National  Assembly,  and  finally,  having  offended  the  Jacobins,  he 
was  imprisoned  and  sentenced  to  the  guillotine.  While  in  prison,  he  wrote  the 

1.  So  highly  was  fhit  essay  esteemed,  that  (he  legislature  of  Pennsylvania  voted  the  author  twenty-five 
hundred  dollars.  Washington  regarded  it  as  his  most  powerful  aid.  In  a  letter  to  Joseph  Reed,  ha 
s.xid,  "  By  private  letters  which  I  have  lately  received  from  Virginia,  I  find  that  Common  Sense  is  work- 
i.iS  a  powerful  change  there  in  the  minds  of  many  men." 


EDWARD    FEEBLE.  199 


chief  portions  of  his  Age  of  Reason.  Ho  escaped  death  by  a  seeming  accident.1 
In  1802,  he  returned  to  America,  and  resided  a  part  of  the  time  upon  a  farm  at 
New  Rochelle,  presented  to  him  by  the  State  of  New  York,  for  his  revolutionary 
services.  Paine  became  very  intemperate,  and  fell  low  in  the  social  scale,  not 
only  on  account  of  his  beastly  habits,  but  because  of  his  blasphemous  tirade 
against  Christianity.  His  Age  of  Reason  is  a  coarse  and  vindictive  assault  upon 
revealed  religion,  exhibiting  neither  sound  logic  nor  honest  argument.  The 
corruptions  of  Christianity  as  he  saw  them  in  France  and  England,  at  that  time, 
a.Tord  extenuating  apologies  for  his  vindictiveness.  Had  Thomas  Paine  lived  at 
this  day,  he  would  never  have  written  his  Age  of  Reason  and  other  libels  upon 
G-od  and  humanity.  As  a  patriot  of  truest  stamp,  his  memory  ought  to  be  re- 
vered— as  an  enemy  to  that  religion  on  which  man's  dearest  hopes  are  centered, 
he  is  to  be  pitied  and  condemned. 

Mr.  Paine  died  in  New  York,  in  1809.  Jarvis,  the  painter,  took  an  impression 
of  his  face  in  plaster,  after  his  death.  That  impression  is  now  in  possession  of 
the  New  York  Historical  Society.  His  friend  and  admirer,  William  Cobbett, 
had  his  bones  exhumed,  and  conveyed  to  England;  and  in  1839,  his  friends  in 
political  and  religious  sentiment  erected  a  beautiful  monument  to  his  memory 
over  his  emptied  grave,  near  New  Rochelle,  on  which  is  inscribed,  beneath  a 
medallion  bust,  "THOMAS  PAINE,  AUTHOR  OF  COMMON  SENSE." 


ED  WARD    PREBLE. 

rPHE  sons  of  revolutionary  fathers  often  inherited  the  courage  and  patriotism 
1  of  their  ancestors ;  indeed,  the  contrary  was  the  exception  to  a  rule,  and 
true  philosophy  has  a  reason  for  it.  The  father  of  Edward  Preble,  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  of  our  naval  commanders,  was  the  honorable  Jedediah  Preble, 
of  the  ancient  town  of  Falmouth  (now  Portland),  Maine.  He  was  a  brigadier 
under  the  government  of  the  Massachusetts  colony,  one  of  the  first  commanders 
of  the  army  at  Cambridge,  in  1775,  and  a  civilian  of  eminence  when  the  Revolu- 
tion had  fairly  commenced.  Edward  was  born  at  the  homestead,  on  the  15th 
of  August,  1761,  and  received  an  academic  education  at  Newbury.  In  early 
childhood  ho  was  noted  for  great  resolution,  and  a  love  of  athletic  exercises. 
Like  many  lads  of  that  seaport,  he  had  a  great  desire  for  ocean  life,  and  he  made 
a  voyage  to  Europe,  in  a  privateer,  in  1778.  The  following  year  he  became  a 
midshipman  in  one  of  the  Massachusetts  vessels,  and  was  captured  during  the 
second  cruise.  Through  the  influence  of  Colonel  Tyng,  a  friend  of  }roung  Preble's 
father,  the  young  man  was  released  at  New  York,  while  the  remainder  of  the 
crew  were  sent  to  England.  He  now  entered  as  first  lieutenant,  on  board  the 
sloop  of  war,  Winthrop,  in  which  he  continued  during  the  remainder  of  the  con- 
test, and  performed  many  deeds  of  valor.  After  the  war,  Preble  was  a  ship- 
master in  many  successive  voyages,  but  stood  ready  for  public  service  when  his 
country  should  call  him  to  duty. 

When,  in  1798,  our  hostile  relations  with  France  made  it  necessary  to  prepare 
our  little  navy  for  service,  Preble  was  one  of  the  five  first-lieutenants,  appointed 
by  Congress.  In  the  Winter  of  l798-'9,  he  made  two  cruises,  and  the  following 
Spring  he  commanded  the  Essex,  under  a  captain's  commission.  In  the  year 

1.  He  was  saved  by  a  singular  providence.  Every  night  an  officer  passed  along  the  rows  of  cells  in 
the  prison,  and  with  a  piece  of  chalk  marked  the  doors  from  which  prisoners  were  to  be  taken  to  the 
scaffold.  Paine's  door  happened  to  be  open.  It  was  'marked,  but  when  it  was  closed  for  the  night,  the 
fatal  sign  was  on  the  inside,  and  he  escaped. 


200  JOHN  H.  LIVINGSTON. 

1800,  he  was  sent  to  convoy  our  merchantmen  from  the  East  India  seas.  He 
was  afterward  appointed  to  the  command  of  the  Adams,  on  the  Mediterranean 
station,  but  ill-health  soon  compelled  him  to  leave  the  service,  for  awhile.  In 
1803,  he  was  placed  in  command  of  the  frigate  Constitution,  and  with  the  Phila- 
delphia and  several  smaller  vessels,  he  proceeded  to  the  Mediterranean  to  humble 
the  Algerine  pirates  who  infested  those  waters.  The  principal  powers  engaged 
in  that  system  of  commercial  robbery  were  those  of  Algiers,  Tunis,  Morocco,  and 
Tripoli,  known  as  the  Barbary  States.  Preble  first  brought  the  Emperor  of 
Morocco  to  terms,  and  then  appeared  before  Tripoli,  with  his  squadron.  There 
he  lost  the  Philadelphia,  which  struck  upon  a  rock  in  the  harbor,  was  captured 
by  the  Tripolitans,  and  the  officers  and  crew  were  made  prisoners.1  Preble  was 
soon  afterward  relieved  by  his  senior,  Commodore  Barron.  The  value  of  his 
gallant  services  on  the  African  coast  was  recognized  by  a  vote  of  Congress,  con- 
ferring upon  him  the  thanks  of  the  nation,  and  an  elegant  medal.  These  were 
presented  to  him,  on  his  return  home,  by  the  President  of  the  United  States. 
On  leaving  his  squadron,  his  officers  expressed  their  esteem  in  a  highly  com- 
plimentary address.  His  services  were  soon  afterward  lost  to  his  country,  at  a 
moment  when  they  were  needed  more  than  ever.  His  health  gave  way  toward 
the  close  of  1806,  and  on  the  25th  of  August,  1807,  he  died,  when  in  the  forty- 
sixth  year  of  his  age.  He  was  buried  in  his  native  town,  with  military  honors. 


JOHN    H.    LIVINGSTON. 

TTEIE  friend  and  earliest  biographer  of  President  Livingston  says  of  him,  "  He 
JL  was  a  man  whose  praise  is  in  all  the  churches ;  first  in  her  councils — first 
in  her  honors — first  in  her  affections."  He  was  born  at  Poughkeepsie,  Dutchess 
county,  New  York,  on  the  30th  of  May,  1746.2  He  received  parental  instruc- 
tion, only,  until  his  seventh  year,  when  he  was  placed  under  other  tutors,  among 
whom  was  the  father  of  the  late  Chancellor  Kent.  At  the  age  of  twelve  years, 
he  entered  Yale  College,  as  a  student,  and  was  graduated  in  1762,  when  only 
sixteen.  The  profession  of  the  law  opened  a  brilliant  future  for  him,  and  he 
commenced  its  study  under  Bartholomew  Crannel,  of  Poughkeepsie.  His  habitual 
seriousness  was  deepened  into  strong  religious  convictions,  by  hearing  a  sermon 
from  the  lips  of  the  eminent  Whitefield,  and  he  resolved  to  abandon  the  law, 
and  become  a  minister  of  the  gospel.  He  accordingly  went  to  Holland,  in  1766, 
to  prosecute  theological  studies  in  the  University  of  Utrecht,  and  there  he  re- 
mained until  1770,  and  acquired  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity.  He  returned 
to  America  the  same  year,  and  became  pastor  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church  in 
the  city  of  New  York.  Through  his  influence,  internal  dissensions,  which  had 
prevailed  for  some  time,  were  healed ;  the  two  parties  formed  a  union,  and,  in 
1772,  the  Dutch  churches  became  independent  of  the  classis  of  Amsterdam;  a 
result  for  which  he  had  labored  while  in  Holland. 

When  the  Eevolution  broke  out,  all  was  confusion  in  New  York,  and  Dr. 
Livingston  went  to  reside  at  Kingston,  in  October,  1775,  where,  a  month  after- 
ward, he  was  married  to  Sarah,  daughter  of  Philip  Livingston.  Until  the  British 
took  possession  of  the  city  of  New  York,  the  following  year,  Dr.  Livingston  went 

1.  See  sketches  of  Bainbridge  and  Decatur. 

2.  The  house  iu  which  he  was  horn  is  yet  in  possession  of  the  family  of  his  only  child,  the  late  Colonel 
Henry  A.  Livingston.     When  the  Britis'h  went  up  the  Hudson,  in  1777,  to  hum  Kingston,  they  fired  a 
huavy  round  shot  at  this  mansion,  because  its  proprietor  was  a  staunch  Whig.     It  passed  into  the  build- 
ing, and  the  ball  is  preserved  by  the  family.     The  house  stands  on  the  margin  of  the  river.     It  was  built 
in  1714,  the  year  when  the  father  of  Dr.  Livingston  was  born. 


JOHN"  H.  LIVINGSTON. 


201 


down  frequently,  and  preached  to  the  remnant  of  his  flock,  who  were  compelled 
to  remain.1  He  officiated  ministerially  at  Albany  and  Livingston's  Manor;  and, 
in.  1781,  he  took  up  his  abode  at  his  father's  mansion,  in  Poughkeepsie.  and  oc- 
cupied the  pulpit  of  the  Dutch  Church  there,  for  about  two  years.  When  the 
British  left  New  York,  Dr.  Livingston  resumed  his  pastoral  charge  there,  and  the 
following  year  he  was  chosen,  by  the  first  convention,  Professor  of  Theology.  He 
performed  his  new  duties,  with  those  of  his  ministerial  services,  with  great  zeal, 
in  New  York  and  its  immediate  vicinity,  until  1810,  when,  on  the  removal  of 
Queen's  College  (the  theological  school  in  which  he  was  professor)  to  New 
Brunswick,  in  New  Jersey,  he  was  chosen  its  president.  His  inaugural  address 
is  a  model  of  its  kind,  full  of  learning  and  the  purest  Christian  spirit.  In  1813, 
he  completed  a  version  of  the  Psalms  and  Hymns  used  in  the  church,  pursuant 
to  the  request  of  the  general  Synod,  and  that  collection  is  now  the  standard  book 
throughout  that  denomination.  As  the  college  under  his  charge  did  not  flourish 
as  a  literary  institution,  an  effort  was  commenced,  in  1815,  to  make  it  a  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  exclusively.  That  measure  was  carried  into  effect,  and  from 
that  time,  until  the  present,  it  has  held  that  character.  Its  name  has  been 
changed  to  Rutger's  College,  in  honor  of  a  distinguished  citizen  of  New  York  who 
nobly  patronised  it. 

1.  Dr.  Livingston  administered  the  Lord's  Snpror  in  the  Middle  Dutch  Church  (now  [1855]  the  city 
Post  OSfice),  in  June,  1776,  the  last  until  the  British  Ipft  the  city,  in  November,  1783. 

9* 


202  GOUVERNEUR   MORRIS. 

Dr.  Livingston's  health  began  to  fail  many  years  before  his  death,  yet  ho 
labored  on  and  hoped  on,  until  the  last.  Finally,  in  January,  1825,  he  was  at- 
tacked with  acute  pain,  but  was  soon  relieved.  On  the  evening  of  the  28th  he 
prayed  fervently,  in  his  family,  and  went  to  bed  in  usual  health.  When  his 
grandson  called  him  to  arise  for  breakfast  the  next  morning,  the  spirit  of  the 
good  man  had  departed  to  the  bosom  of  his  God  whom  he  so  dearly  loved  and 
so  faithfully  served.  He  was  then  in  the  seventy-ninth  year  of  his  age. 


QOIJVERNEUR    MORRIS. 

r'E  preparation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  in  the  form  adopted 
by  the  convention,  in  1787,  and  ratified  by  a  majority  of  the  States,  the 
following  year,  was  the  work  of  the  accomplished  scholar  and  statesman,  Gou- 
verneur  Morris,  brother  of  Lewis,  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. He  was  born  at  Morrisania,  on  the  Westchester  shore  of  the  Harlem 
River,  New  York,  on  the  31st  of  January,  1752.  The  death  of  his  father  left 
him  to  the  care  of  his  mother  at  the  age  of  twelve  years.  He  was  graduated  at 
King's  (now  Columbia)  College,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  in  May,  1768,  at  the 
age  of  sixteen  years,  and  his  oration  on  that  occasion,  on  the  subject  of  Wit  and 
Beauty,  made  a  marked  sensation  among  the  polished  circles  of  the  day.  He 
studied  law  under  William  Smith,  the  historian  of  New  York,  and  afterward 
chief  justice  of  the  province,  and  was  licensed  to  practice,  in  the  Autumn  of 
1771.  He  was  not  yet  twenty  years  of  age,  yet  he  had  already  engaged  in 
political  discussions  of  the  day,  especially  upon  financial  subjects,  and  had  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  many  leading  men.  He  continued  much  before  the 
public  in  speech  and  in  print,  until  1775,  when  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the 
New  York  Provincial  Congress.  There  he  made  a  most  favorable  impression, 
and  was  soon  an  acknowledged  leader,  although  then  only  twenty -three  years 
of  ago.  He  was  one  of  the  committee  of  correspondence  for  the  city  of  New 
York,  and  his  pen  was  continually  busy  for  the  patriot  cause.  In  the  Summer 
of  1776,  he  was  sent  as  special  agent  to  the  Continental  Congress,  on  the  subject 
of  payment  to  troops ;  and  in  the  Autumn  of  the  following  year,  he  was  elected 
to  a  seat  in  that  body.  He  was  placed  on  a  committee  to  confer  with  General 
Washington  on  the  subject  of  a  new  organization  of  the  Continental  army,  and 
he  spent  nearly  three  months  in  the  camp  at  Valley  Forge.  From  the  moment 
of  presenting  his  credentials,  Mr.  Morris  was  one  of  the  most  active  and  highly 
esteemed  members  of  Congress ;  and  finally,  when  the  government  was  newly 
organized,  in  1781,  under  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  he  was  made  assistant 
financial  agent  with  his  great  namesake  of  Philadelphia.  He  was  now  a  per- 
manent resident  of  that  city,  where,  by  an  accident,  he  lost  a  leg.1  He  remained 
there  until  1786,  when  he  purchased  the  paternal  estate  at  Morrisania  from  a 
Tory  brother,  and  soon  afterward  made  it  his  abode.  He  was  a  delegate  from 
Pennsylvania  in  the  convention  that  framed  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  when 
the  various  articles  had  been  thoroughly  discussed  and  agreed  upon,  the  task  of 
putting  the  whole  instrument  into  proper  form  and  language  was  entrusted  to 
Mr.  Morris.  The  following  year  he  went  to  Paris,  and  resided  there  until  early 
in  1790,  when,  having  received  from  President  Washington  the  appointment  of 

1.  He  was  thrown  from  a  carriage  in  the  streets  of  Philadelphia,  and  the  bones  of  one  of  his  legs  were 
to  much  shattered,  that  amputation  became  necessary.  He  always  wore  a  rough  stick,  as  a  substitute, 
and  would  never  consent  to  have  a  handsome  leg  made. 


THOMAS   M'KEAN.  203 


private  agent  to  transact  Important  business  with  the  British  ministry,  he  went 
to  London.  After  accomplishing  his  business,  ho  made  a  brief  tour  on  the  Con- 
tinent. Early  in  1792,  he  received  intelligence  of  his  appointment  as  minister 
plenipotentiary  to  the  French  court,  and  that  important  station  he  filled  until 
the  Autumn  of  1*794,  when  he  made  another  Continental  tour,  chiefly  for  the 
purpose  of  gathering  information  for  the  benefit  of  himself  and  country.  He 
finally  returned  to  America  in  the  Autumn  of  1798,  and  retired  to  private  life 
at  Morrisania,  after  an  absence  of  ten  years,  during  which  time  he  had  been  en- 
gaged in  the  most  arduous  public  and  private  duties.  He  was  soon  afterward 
elected  to  fill  a  vacancy  in  the  United  States  Senate,  and  held  a  seat  there  from 
May,  1800,  until  March,  1803.  He  travelled  most  of  the  remainder  of  1803,  in 
the  United  States  and  Canada.  His  thoughts  were  ever  active  on  the  subject 
of  the  internal  improvement  of  his  native  State.  He  was  among  the  earliest  to 
appreciate  Jesse  Hawley's  plan  for  connecting  the  waters  of  Lake  Erie  and  the 
Hudson,  by  a  canal,  and  was  one  of  the  most  ardent  friends  of  the  project.  He 
did  not  live  to  see  it  consummated,  for  death  suddenly  terminated  his  career,  on 
the  6th  of  November,  1816,  in  the  sixty-fifth  year  of  his  age.  Mr.  Morris  was  a 
fine  writer,  and  his  pen  wielded  an  extensive  influence  during  half  a  century. 


THOMAS     M'KEAN. 

AMONG  the  numerous  men  of  note,  in  Pennsylvania,  who  received  an  aca- 
demic education  under  Francis  Allison,1  was  the  eminent  Chief  Justice 
M'Kean,  of  that  State.  He  was  born  in  Chester  county,  Pennsylvania,  on  the 
19th  of  March,  1734.  He  studied  law  with  his  relative,  David  Finney,  at  New 
Castle,  in  Delaware ;  and  during  his  student  life,  he  was  clerk  of  the  prothono- 
tary  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  for  that  county.  He  was  admitted  to  practice 
before  he  was  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and  his  upward  course  in  his  profession 
was  rapid  and  highly  honorable.  In  1756,  he  was  appointed  deputy  of  the  at- 
torney-general, to  prosecute  in  the  county  of  Sussex,  and  the  following  year  he 
was  admitted  to  the  bar  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Pennsylvania.  He  was  ap- 
pointed clerk  of  the  assembly  of  Delaware,  at  about  the  same  time ;  and  that 
body,  in  1762,  appointed  him  a  colleague,  with  Caesar  Rodney,  to  revise  and 
print  the  laws  of  the  province  enacted  during  the  preceding  ten  years.  That 
same  year  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  Delaware  Assembly,2  and  then  he 
commenced  his  distinguished  political  career,  in  earnest,  which  continued  for 
almost  half  a  century.  He  was  annually  reflected  to  the  Assembly  for  seventeen 
years,  against  his  continually  expressed  desire  to  leave  public  life,  and  even 
while,  for  six  years  of  the  time,  he  was  a  resident  of  the  city  of  Philadelphia. 
This  was  an  extraordinary  proof  of  his  ability  and  fidelity.3 

In  1784,  the  legislature  appointed  him  one  of  three  trustees  of  the  provincial 
loan  office,  and  he  performed  the  duties  of  that  station  until  1772.  He  was  a 
delegate  to  the  "Stamp  Act  Congress"  held  in  New  York,  in  1765,  and  was 

1.  See  sketch  of  Francis  Allison. 

2.  The  present  State  of  Delaware,  which  William  Penn  obtained  by  grant  and  purchase,  in  1682,  ar.d 
annexed  to  hts  province  of  Pennsylvania,  was  originally  known  as  The  Territories,  comprising  the  three 
counties  of  New  Castle,  Kent,  and  Sussex.     Penn  gave  the  people  of  Pennsylvania  a  new  and  more 
liberal  charter,  in  1701,  but  the  people  of  The  Territories  preferred  a  separate  and  independent  govern- 
ment.    A  compromise  was  effected.     The  Delaware  counties  were  allowed  a  dist  n~t  and  independent 
assembly,  under  the  same  governor  and  council  as  Pennsylvania.    Such  was  the  political  condition  of 
the  two  commonwealths,  until  finally  separated  in  1776. 

3.  When  he  finally  positively  declined  a  re-election,  in  1777.  the  people  insisted  that  he  should  name 
some  of  the  best  men  in  Delaware,  for  their  representatives.    He  did  so,  and  all  were  elected. 


THOMAS   BALDWIN. 


one  of  the  most  energetic  friends  of  popular  liberty  in  that  assembly.  In  1771, 
he  was  appointed  collector  of  the  customs  at  New  Castle,  and  was  a  commissioner 
of  the  revenue.  In  the  Autumn  of  1772,  he  was  chosen  Speaker  of  the  As- 
sembly. He  was  a  delegate  for  his  adopted  province  "in  the  first  Continental 
Congress,  in  1774;  and  he  was  a  member  of  the  national  council  from  that  time 
until  the  return  of  peace,  in  1783.  As  such  he  advocated  independence,  and 
signed  the  great  Declaration.  He  was  one  of  the  committee  appointed  to  draw 
up  the  Articles  of  Confederation ;  and  while  acting  as  a  senator  in  Congress,  and 
president  of  the  newly-organized  State  of  Delaware,  he  was  also  distinguished  as 
a  soldier,  in  New  Jersey,  with  the  commission  of  colonel.  In  July,  1777,  he  was 
commissioned  chief  justice  of  Pennsylvania,  and  held  that  exalted  office  for 
twenty  years.  It  was  a  position  of  great  responsibility,  but  Judge  M'Kean  was 
equal  to  the  task  he  had  assumed.  He  was  president  of  Congress,  in  1781 ; 
and,  in  1787,  he  was  a  member  of  the  Pennsylvania  convention  which  ratified 
the  Federal  Constitution.  He  was  its  earnest  advocate,  and  was  extremely  in- 
fluential iu  procuring  its  ratification,  by  Pennsylvania.  In  1789,  Judge  M'Kean 
assisted  in  amending  the  constitution  of  his  native  State ;  and  ten  years  after- 
ward, at  the  end  of  a  warm  party  contest,  he  was  elected  governor  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. He  was  rather  violent  in  his  party  zeal,  and  his  course  as  chief  magis- 
trate created  the  most  bitter  animosity  against  him.  His  political  enemies  tried 
to  impeach  him,  but  his  stern  integrity  never  allowed  him  to  deviate  from  the 
strict  line  of  duty,  and  they  found  no  true  basis  for  their  attempts  to  degrade 
him.  For  nine  years  he  governed  Pennsylvania  with  firmness,  ability,  and  great 
discretion,  and  then  retired  from  public  life.  Only  once  again  did  he  appear  in 
a  popular  assembly.  It  was  in  Independence  Hall,  in  1814,  when  the  safety  of 
Philadelphia  seemed  in  jeopardy  from  the  British.  He  presided,  and  reminded 
the  people  that  there  were  then  only  two  parties,  "  our  country  and  its  invaders." 
The  venerable  patriot  went  down  into  the  grave,  on  the  24th  of  June,  1817, 
when  past  the  eighty-third  year  of  his  age. 


THOMAS    BALDWIN. 

ONE  of  the  most  eminent  lights  of  the  Baptist  Church,  in  America,  was  the 
Reverend  Thomas  Baldwin,  D.D.,  who  was  born  at  Bozrah,1  Connecticut, 
on  the  23d  of  December,  1753.  His  early  education  was  very  limited,  yet  his 
ardent  aspirations  for  knowledge  overcame  many  obstacles  in  his  way.  When 
he  was  sixteen  years  of  age  his  parents  went  to  Canaan,  then  a  frontier  town  in 
New  Hampshire,  to  reside,  and  there  his  youth  was  spent  in  the  laborious  voca- 
tion of  a  blacksmith,  the  business  of  his  step-father.  He  was  frequently  called 
upon  to  read  sermons  to  the  people  on  the  Sabbath,  when  the  minister  was  ab- 
sent, he  being  the  only  young  man  in  the  place  capable  of  performing  such  ser- 
vice. Only  a  few  books  could  then  be  obtained,  yet  so  thoroughly  did  he  study 
all  that  fell  in  his  way,  that,  when  arrived  at  manhood,  he  possessed  a  stock  of 
miscellaneous  knowledge  much  greater  than  that  of  most  young  men  of  his  time, 
out  of  cities. 

Young  Baldwin  was  married  to  Ruth  Huntington,  of  Norwich,  in  1775,  and 

1.  The  origin  of  this  name  is  a  little  amusing.  A  plain  man,  -who  lived  where  Fitchville  now  is,  was 
not  remarkable  for  quoting  Scripture  correctly.  On  one  occasion,  in  quoting  the  sentence  from  Isaiah, 
"Who  is  this  that  cometh  from  Edom,  with  dyed  garments  from  Bozrah,"  &c.,  he  stated  that  the 
Prophet  Bozrah  said  thus  and  so.  He  was  ever  afterward  called  the  Prophet,  and  his  place  was  named 
Bozrah.  When  the  town  was  incorporated,  that  name  was  given  to  it. 


THOMAS  BALDWIN. 


205 


soon  afterward  became  a  member  of  the  Baptist  Church.  He  was  ordained  for 
tho  Christian  ministry,  in  the  Summer  of  1*783 ;  and  at  about  the  same  time  he 
was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Connecticut  legislature.  Never  was  a  man  more 
devoted  to  his  calling,  than  was  this  eminent  young  servant  of  Christ.  He  soon 
declined  political  office,  because  it  interfered  with  his  ministerial  labors.  Like 
Paul,  his  own  hands  ministered  to  his  necessities,  for,  during  the  first  seven 
years  of  his  pastoral  labors,  his  salary  did  not  amount  to  forty  dollars  a  year. 
Yet  he  travelled  on  horseback  over  a  large  district  of  country. 

The  fame  of  Mr.  Baldwin,  as  a  zealous  preacher,  was  soon  in  all  the  churches ; 
and,  in  November,  1790,  he  was  installed  pastor  of  the  Second  Baptist  Church, 
in  Boston.  The  change  from  the  ruder  society  of  the  frontier,  to  the  more  re- 
fined of  the  metropolis,  was  very  great,  yet  his  services  were  most  acceptable, 
from  the  beginning.  His  fervid  and  persuasive  eloquence  captivated  all  hearts, 
and  remarkable  revivals  occurred  under  his  preaching.  "Within  the  space  of 
two  years  [1803-1805],  over  two  hundred  communicants  were  added  to  his 
congregation. 

In  1803,  the  Faculty  of  Union  College,  New  York,  conferred  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Divinity,  upon  Mr.  Baldwin;  and  the  same  year  he  commenced  the 
publication  of  the  American  Baptist  Magazine.  He  was  its  sole  editor  until  1817, 
and  senior  editor  until  his  death.  It  was  a  powerful  auxiliary  in  his  hands,  in 
promoting  the  growth  of  the  Baptist  Church  in  this  country ;  and,  for  a  long 


206  SETH   WARNER. 


time,  it  was  the  only  publication  issued  by  that  denomination  on  this  side  the 
Atlantic. 

Although  eminent  as  a  preacher  and  editor,  Dr.  Baldwin  is  more  widely  known 
to  the  reading  world  as  an  author.  The  number  of  his  published  works  is  thirty- 
four,  a  large  proportion  of  which  consists  of  sermons,  printed  by  special  request. 
His  writings  on  Baptism  have  always  been  regarded  as  expressing  the  opinions 
of  the  standard  authorities  of  his  denomination.  Dr.  Baldwin  was  a  zealous 
friend  of  institutions  of  learning,  especially  of  those  fostered  by  the  Baptist 
Church ;  and  during  his  long  life,  until  his  steps  began  to  totter,  he  was  an  active 
laborer.  He  literally  "died  in  harness,"  for  he  expired  at  Waterville,  Maine,  on 
the  day  after  preaching  two  instructive  sermons  at  Hallowell.  His  departure 
was  on  the  29th  of  August,  1825,  at  the  age  of  seventy-two  years.  Temperate 
and  regular  in  his  habits,  his  old  age  was  like  a  sunny  landscape  just  at  evening, 
suffused  with  golden  light. 


SETH    WARNEK. 

4 MONO-  the  Green  Mountain  Boys  of  the  last  century,  the  man  next  to  Ethan 
Allen  in  their  esteem,  for  daring  courage,  unflinching  patriotism,  and  pleas- 
ant companionship,  was  Seth  Warner,  a  native  of  Woodbury,  Connecticut,  where 
he  was  born  at  about  the  year  1744.  We  have  no  reliable  records  of  his  early 
life,  except  that  he  was  fond  of  athletic  sports  and  the  excitements  of  the  chase. 
He  took  up  his  abode  at  Bennington,  in  the  present  Vermont,  in  1773,  and  was 
famous  throughout  that  whole  region  as  a  deer  and  bear  hunter.  In  the  contro- 
versy with  the  authorities  of  Vermont,  he  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  people ; 
and  in  March,  1774,  the  legislature  of  New  York  passed  an  act  of  outlawry  against 
him.  He  was  with  Ethan  Allen  at  the  capture  of  Ticonderoga,  in  May,  1775, 
and  commanded  the  little  force  that  took  possession  of  Crown  Point  immediately 
afterward.  He  received  a  colonel's  commission  from  Congress,  raised  a  regiment  of 
Green  Mountain  Soys, 1  and  joined  the  army  in  Canada,  under  General  Montgomery ; 
but  on  the  approach  of  Winter,  they  were  discharged.  He  had  been  of  great 
service  after  the  capture  of  Ethan  Allen,  at  Montreal,  and  on  the  1st  of  Novem- 
ber, had  repulsed  a  considerable  British  force,  under  Governor  Carleton,  which 
attempted  to  land  at  Longueuil  for  the  purpose  of  driving  the  invading  Amer- 
icans back  to  Lake  Champlain.  The  following  Spring,  Warner  raised  another 
regiment,  marched  toward  Quebec,  and  was  very  serviceable  in  the  final  retreat 
of  the  Americans  from  Canada.  In  all  the  operations  in  the  vicinity  of  Lake 
Champlain,  in  1776,  Colonel  Warner  was  an  efficient  participator;  and  he  was 
at  Ticonderoga,  in  the  Summer  of  1777,  when  Burgoyne  compelled  the  Amer- 
icans to  abandon  that  post.  He  commanded  a  part  of  St.  Clair's  troops  in  that 
retreat,  and  gallantly  fought  the  pursuing  enemy  at  Hubbardton,  on  the  7th  of 
July.  Defeated  in  that  engagement,  he  made  a  successful  retreat  to  Manchester, 
and  on  the  16th  of  August  following,  he  was  with  the  gallant  Stark  in  the  en- 
gagement known  as  the  Battle  of  Bennington.  He  then  joined  General  Gates  on 
the  Hudson,  assisted  in  humbling  Burgoyne,  and  participated  in  the  glory  of  his 
defeat  and  capture.  He  engaged  very  little  in  public  life,  after  that  event,  be- 
cause his  health  was  greatly  impaired  by  a  complication  of  disorders.  He  lin- 
gered on  until  1785,  when  death  ended  his  sufferings.  He  died  at  his  birth-place, 
at  the  age  of  about  forty-one  years.  Grateful  for  his  services,  his  adopted  State 
granted  a  valuable  tract  of  land  to  his  widow  and  children. 

1.  See  sketch  of  Ethan  Allen. 


JOSEPH   REED.  207 


JOSEPH    REED. 

"  T  AM  not  worth  purchasing:,  but,  such  as  I  am,  the  King  of  Great  Britain  is 
1  not  rich  enough  to  do  it,"  are  the  noble  words  attributed  by  tradition  to 
Joseph  Reed,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  uttered  when  a  bribe  was  offered  for  his 
influence  in  favor  of  Great  Britain,  in  1778.  He  was  born  at  Trenton,  New 
Jersey,  on  the  27th  of  August,  1741.  His  father  soon  afterward  made  Phila- 
delphia his  residence,  for  several  years.  Joseph  was  designed  for  the  profession 
of  the  law,  and  was  educated  in  the  college  at  Princeton,  where  he  was  grad- 
uated in  1757,  with  a  Bachelor's  degree,  at  the  early  age  of  sixteen  years.  He 
first  studied  law  with  Richard  Stockton,  and  completed  his  legal  education  in  the 
Temple,  in  London.  On  his  return  home,  he  made  Philadelphia  his  residence, 
entered  warmly  into  political  life,  and  was  one  of  the  committee  of  correspond- 
ence in  his  adopted  city,  in  1774.  He  was  chosen  president  of  the  first  popular 
convention  in  Pennsylvania;  and,  in  1775,  he  accompanied  Washington  to 
Cambridge  as  his  aid  and  secretary.  He  remained  with  the  chief  during  that 
campaign,  and  the  following  year,  when  Gates  was  appointed  to  the  command 
in  the  Northern  Department.  Mr.  Reed  was  then  appointed  adjutant-general 
of  the  American  army,  with  the  rank  of  colonel.  He  performed  efficient  service 
in  the  battle  near  Brooklyn,  in  August,  1776,  especially  in  the  management  of 
the  admirable  retreat  of  the  Americans.  In  the  Spring  of  1 7  7  7,  he  was  appointed 
a  brigadier,  in  command  of  cavalry,  but  declined  the  honor,  yet  he  remained  at- 
tached to  the  army  until  after  the  battle  at  Germantown,  in  the  Autumn  of 
1777.  He  was  soon  afterward  elected  to  a  seat  in  Congress,  and  was  a  member 
of  that  body  when,  in  the  Spring  of  1778,  commissioners  came  from  England  to 
negotiate  a  peace  on  the  basis  of  the  submission  of  the  colonists  to  the  crown. 
It  was  to  the  agent  of  one  of  these  commissioners  that  he  is  said  to  have  ad- 
dressed the  words  above  quoted.1  The  fact  became  known,  and  Congress  re- 
fused farther  intercourse  with  the  commissioners.  In  1778,  General  Reed  was 
chosen  president  of  the  newly-organized  commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
filled  that  station  with  great  ability  until  October,  1781,  when  he  retired  from 
public  life,  and  resumed  the  practice  of  the  law.  Like  all  dutiful  men,  he  was 
the  target  for  unmeasured  abuse  from  his  political  opponents ;  but  when  time 
dissipated  the  clouds  of  party  rancor,  all  men  beheld  in  Joseph  Reed  a  patriot 
and  an  honest  man.  His  health  became  impaired  in  1784,  and  he  went  to  Eng- 
land to  seek  its  restoration,  but  without  beneficial  results.2  He  died  on  the  4th 
of  March,  1785,  at  the  age  of  forty-four,  years. 

1.  The  agent  chosen  was  Mrs.  Ferguson,  a  native  of  Pennsylvania,  whose  husband  was  a  relative  of 
Adam  Ferguson,  the  secretary  of  the  commission.  She  was  a  woman  of  superior  attainments,  and  loved 
her  country.  She  was  a  passive,  rather  than  an  active  agent  in  the  matter.  In  her  account  of  her  in- 
terview with  Mr.  Reed,  she  says  his  words  were,  "My  influence  is  but  small,  but  were  it  as  great  as 
O-overnor  Johnstone  [the  commissioner  who  approached  General  Reed,  through  Mrs.  Ferguson]  would 
insinuate,  the  King  of  Great  Britain  has  nothing  within  his  gift  that  would  tempt  me."  Alluding  to 
this,  Trumbull,  in  his  "M'Fingall,"  says  : 

"  Behold,  at  Britain's  utmost  shifts, 
Comes  Johnstone,  loaded  with  like  gifts, 
To  venture  through  the  Whiggish  tribe, 
To  cuddle,  wheedle,  coax,  and  bribe ; 
And  call  to  aid  his  desp'rate  mission, 
His  petticoated  politician ; 
While  Venus,  joined  to  act  the  farce, 
Strolls  forth  embassadress  of  Mars." 

2.  Mr.  Reed  married  a  daughter  of  Dennis  de  Berdt,  a  London  merchant,  in  1770.  Though  in  delicate 
health,  she  was  active  in  her  sphere  of  duty  in  relation  to  public  events.  She  was  at  the  head  of  an 
association  of  ladies,  formed  in  Philadelphia  in  1780,  to  furnish  clothing  for  the  army.  No  less  than 
twenty-two  hundred  ladies  joined  the  association,  and  contributed  by  their  money  and  needles  to  the 
comfort  of  the  soldiers. 


208  JAMES   RIVINGTON. 


JAMES    RIVINGTON. 

T)ERHAPS  one  of  the  most  acute  and  successful  political  gamesters  in  this 
JT  country,  was  James  Rivington,  "the  king's  printer,"  in  New  York,  during 
a  greater  portion  of  the  "War  for  Independence.  He  was  a  native  of  London, 
well-educated,  courtly  in  deportment,  and  a  general  favorite  among  his  acquaint- 
ances. He  was  a  bookseller  in  London,  but  failing  in  business,  he  came  to 
America,  in  1760,  and  opened  a  book-store  in  Philadelphia.  The  following  year 
he  opened  another  at  the  foot  of  Wall  Street,  New  York;  and,  in  1762,  he 
established  a  third,  in  Boston.  His  partner  in  the  latter  died  three  years  after- 
ward, and  it  was  closed.  In  the  course  of  a  few  years  he  again  failed  in  busi- 
ness, but  settling  his  affairs  satisfactorily,  he  resumed  it  in  New  York,  and 
thereafter  confined  his  operations  to  that  city.  He  commenced  printing  books, 
in  1772  ;  and,  in  the  Spring  of  the  following  year,  he  published  the  first  number 
of  his  Royal  Gazetteer,  a  weekly  newspaper.  It  was  conducted  with  considerable 
fairness,  but  after  the  hostilities  in  Massachusetts,  in  the  Spring  of  1775,  he  took 
strong  ground  against  the  "Whigs,  and  excited  their  fiercest  indignation.  Their 
ire  took  tangible  shape  in  November  of  that  year,  when  Isaac  Sears  (a  leader  of 
the  Sons  of  Liberty  ten  years  before),  at  the  head  of  a  troop  of  Connecticut  mil- 
itia, marched  into  the  city  at  noon-day,  destroyed  Rivington's  press,  and  car- 
ried off  his  type  to  the  tune  of  Yankee  Doodle.  Rivington  soon  afterward  went 
to  England,  but  returned  in  the  Autumn  of  1776,  when  the  British  had  taken 
possession  of  New  York.  Early  in  1777,  he  resumed  the  publication  of  his 
paper,  and  from  that  time  till  the  close  of  the  war,  he  dealt  hard  and  unscrupu- 
lous blows  upon  the  patriots,  from  Washington  and  Congress  down  to  the  most 
obscure  official.  And  yet,  toward  the  close  of  the  conflict,  while  his  press  was 
the  vehicle  of  the  coarsest  abuse  of  Washington  and  his  friends,  it  is  a  well-at- 
tested fact  that  Rivington  was  secretly  furnishing  the  American  commander-in- 
chief  valuable  information  concerning  the  movements  and  plans  of  the  enemy 
within  the  city.  Such  was  the  case  from  early  in  1781,  until  the  evacuation  of 
the  city  by  the  British  near  the  close  of  1783.1  This  fact  accounts  for  the  other- 
wise inexplicable  circumstance,  that  Rivington,  the  arch-loyalist,  was  allowed 
to  remain  while  thousands  of  less  offending  Tories  were  compelled  to  flee  to 
Nova  Scotia.  Rivington  sagaciously  perceived  the  inevitable  result  of  the  con- 
flict, and  thus  made  a  peace-offering  to  the  Americans.  His  business  declined 
after  the  war,  and  he  lived  in  comparative  poverty  for  many  years,  simply  be- 
cause he  would  not  relinquish  his  expensive  mode  of  living.2  He  died  in  July, 
1802,  when  at  the  age  of  about  seventy-eight  years. 

1.  By  means  of  books -which  he  printed,  he  performed  his  treason  without  suspicion.     He  wrote  his 
information  upon  thin  paper,  and  hound  those  billets  in  the  covers  of  books  which  he  adroitly  managed  to 
sell  to  persons  employed  by  Washington  to  buy  of  him,  but  who  were  ignorant  of  the  transaction.    Wash- 
ington removed  the  covers,  and  found  the  desired  information.    Referring  to  the  change  in  the  tone  of 
Rivington's  paper,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  Philip  Frenau,  the  vigorous  epic  and  lyric  poet  of  the 
Revolution,  wrote,  in  the  editor's  name  : 

"  You  know  I  was  zealous  for  George's  command, 
But  since  he  disgraced  it,  and  left  us  behind, 
If  I  thought  him  an  angel  I've  altered  my  mind. 
On  the  very  same  day  that  his  army  went  hence, 
I  ceased  to  tell  lies  for  the  sake  of  his  pence ; 
And  what  was  the  reason — the  true  one  is  best, 
I  worship  no  sun  that  declines  to  the  west." 

2.  Referring  to  this,  Frenau  wrote  : 

"  Long  life  and  low  spirits  were  never  my  choice, 
As  long  as  I  live  I  intend  to  rejoice  ; 
When  life  is  worn  out,  and  no  wir.e  's  to  be  had, 
'Tis  time  enough  then  to  be  serious  and  sad, 
'Tis  time  enough  then  to  reflect  and  repent, 
When  our  liquor  is  gone,  and  our  money  is  spent." 


JOHN   DICKENSON. 


209 


JOHN   DICKENSON. 

THE  "  Letters  of  a  Farmer  of  Pennsylvania  to  the  Inhabitants  of  the  British 
Colonies,"  published  in  the  Pennsylvania  Chronicle,  during  the  Summer  and 
Autumn  of  1767,  had  a  powerful  influence  on  the  American  mind,  in  preparing 
it  for  the  great  struggle  for  freedom,  even  then  impending.  The  author  was 
John  Dickenson,  a  native  of  Maryland,  where  he  was  born,  on  the  13th  of 
November,  1732.  His  father  was  first  judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  in 
Delaware,  and  being  wealthy,  his  son  had  every  advantage  of  social  position 
and  pecuniary  ease,  at  the  beginning  of  life.  He  was  well  educated  by  private 
tutors,  and  then  went  to  England  and  studied  law  in  the  Temple,  for  three  years. 
He  first  appeared  in  public  life  as  a  member  of  the  Pennsylvania  Assembly,  in 
1764,  where  the  readiness  of  his  pen  attracted  general  attention.  He  was  also 
a  member  of  the  Stamp  Act  Congress,  in  1765.  He  soon  afterward  commenced 
writing  political  essays ;  and  during  the  whole  conflict,  which  commenced  in 
earnest  in  1775,  his  pen  was  always  active  and  efficient.  His  Letters  of  a  Penn- 
sylvania Farmer,  above  alluded  to,  were  published  in  London,  by  Dr.  Franklin, 
in  1768,  and  the  following  year  they  were  translated  into  French,  and  published 
at  Paris.' 

1.  The  people  of  Boston  passed  a  vote  of  thanks  to  Mr.  Dickenson  for  those  Letters,  and  the  Society 
of  Fort  St.  David,  of  Philadelphia,  presented  him  with  an  address  in  "  a  box  of  heart  of  oak." 


210  PETER   MUHLENBE11G. 

Mr.  Dickenson  was  a  member  of  the  first  Continental  Congress,  in  1774,  and 
his  pen  was  instrumental  in  the  preparation  of  two  of  the  State  papers  put  forth 
by  that  body.  He  wrote  the  Declaration  of  the  Congress  of  1775,  setting  forth 
the  causes  and  the  necessity  for  war ;  yet  ho  steadily  opposed  the  idea  of  polit- 
ical independence,  for  he  hoped  for  a  reconciliation.  For  that  reason,  he  was 
intentionally  absent  from  Congress  on  the  4th  of  July,  1776,  for  he  was  unwill- 
ing to  vote  on  the  subject  of  independence,  contrary  to  the  expressed  wishes  of 
his  constituents.  In  the  Autumn  of  1777,  President  M'Kean,  of  Delaware, 
commissioned  him  a  brigadier-general,  but  his  military  career  was  short.  Ho 
was  again  elected  to  Congress,  in  1779,  and  there,  as  before,  his  pen  was  em- 
ployed in  the  preparation  of  important  State  papers.  In  1780,  he  took  his  seat, 
as  a  member,  in  the  Delaware  Assembly;  and,  in  1782,  he  was  elected  president 
or  governor  of  Pennsylvania.  He  held  that  office  until  October,  1785.  He  was 
one  of  the  mqst  accomplished  and  efficient  members  of  the  convention  that 
framed  the  Federal  Constitution ;  and  over  the  signature  of  Fdbius  he  published 
nine  ably-written  letters  in  its  defence.  In  1792,  he  assisted  in  forming  a  Con- 
stitution for  Delaware;  and,  in  1797,  he  published  another  series  of  political 
letters  over  the  signature  of  Fdbius.  At  about  that  time  he  retired  from  public 
life,  and  the  remainder  of  his  days  were  passed  in  the  enjoyment  of  domestic 
and  social  happiness,  at  Wilmington,  where  he  died  on  the  14th  of  February, 
1808,  at  the  age  of  seventy-five  years.  Dickenson  College,  at  Carlisle,  Pennsyl- 
vania, is  a  noble  monument  to  perpetuate  his  memory.  It  is  now  [1854]  under 
the  control  of  the  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia  conferences  of  tho  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church. 


PETEK    MUHLENBERG. 

OPIRITUAL  and  temporal  warfare  was  the  lot  of  many  Gospel  ministers,  dur- 
0  ing  the  War  for  Independence.  Of  those  who  wielded  weapons  manfully, 
in  both  fields  of  conflict,  was  John  Peter  Gabriel  Muhlenberg,  who  generally 
wrote  his  name  with  the  John  and  Gabriel  omitted.  He  was  a  native  of  Trappe, 
a  village  in  Montgomery  county,  Pennsylvania,  whore  ho  was  born  on  the  1st 
of  October,  1746.  He  was  the  son  of  Dr.  Melchoir  Muhlenberg  (the  founder  of 
the  Lutheran  Church  in  America),  and  the  daughter  of  Conrad  Weiser.  the  great 
Pennsylvania  Indian  agent.  Peter  was  educated  for  the  ministry,  partly  in  this 
country,  and  partly  in  Europe.  He  was  ordained  in  1768,  and  commenced  his 
pastoral  labors  in  Western  New  Jersey  the  following  year.  He  was  called  to 
the  charge  of  a  congregation  in  Virginia,  in  1771,  and  it  being  necessary  to  ob- 
tain ordination  from  an  English  Bishop,  before  he  could  enter  upon  his  duties 
tliero,  he  went  to  London  for  the  purpose,  at  the  beginning  of  the  following 
year.  He  and  Mr.  (afterward  Bishop)  White  were  ordained  at  the  same  time. 
On  his  return,  he  became  minister  of  the  parish  of  Woodstock,  Virginia,  and  was 
soon  an  acknowledged  leading  spirit  of  that  section  among  those  who  opposed 
British  aggressions.  He  was  chairman  of  the  committee  of  safety  in  that  county, 
in  1774,  and  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Burgesses.  At  the  close  of 
1775,  he  was  appointed  colonel  of  a  Virginia  regiment,  and,  relinquishing  his 
pastoral  duties,1  he  joined  the  army,  and  was  in  the  battle  at  Charleston,  in 

1.  In  concluding  his  farewell  sermon,  he  quoted  the  language  of  Holy  Writ,  which  declares  that  there 
is  "  u  time  for  all  things,"  and  atl  led,  -with  a  trumpet  voice,  "  there  is  a  time  to  fight,  and  that  time  has 
now  come  !"  Then  laying  aside  his  gown,  he  stood  hefore  his  flo^k  in  the  fill  uniform  of  a  Virginia 
colonel.  He  then  ordered  the  drums  to  be  bea  en  at  the  church  door  fr  recruits,  and  alrcon  three  hundred 
men,  chiefly  of  his  congregation,  were  enrolled  under  his  banner,  that  day. 


SILAS   TALBOT.  211 


June,  17  76.  Congress  commissioned  him  a  brigadier,  in  February,  1777,  and  he 
was  ordered  to  take  charge  of  all  the  Virginia  Continental  troops.  He  joined 
the  army,  under  Washington,  at  Middlebrook,  in  May,  and  was  with  the  chief 
in  all  his  movements  from  that  time  until  1779 — Brandywine,  Germantown, 
White  Marsh,  Valley  Forge,  and  Monmouth.  He  was  with  Wayne  at  the  cap- 
ture of  Stony  Point,  in  July,  1779,  and  was  very  active  afterward,  in  Virginia, 
until  the  capture  of  Cornwallis,  in  the  Autumn  of  1781.  He  was  a  brave  par- 
ticipator in  that  last  great  battle  of  the  Revolution.  At  the  close  of  the  war  he 
was  promoted  to  major-general,  and  removed  to  Pennsylvania.  Ho  never  re- 
sumed his  ministerial  labors,  but  served  his  native  State  in  several  civil  offices. 
He  was  a  member  of  the  first  and  third  Congress,  after  the  organization  of  the 
Federal  Government,  and  was  also  a  United  States  Senator,  in  1801.  He  was 
appointed  supervisor  of  the  revenue  of  Pennsylvania  the  same  year;  and,  in 
1802,  ho  was  made  collector  of  the  port  of  Philadelphia.  In  that  office  he  re- 
mained until  his  death,  which  occurred  at  his  country  seat,  near  Philadelphia, 
on  the  1st  of  October,  1807,  when  ho  was  precisely  sixty-one  years  of  age.  His 
remains  lie  buried  in  the  burial-ground  at  Trappe,  near  the  church  wherein  ho 
was  baptized.  <r 


SILAS    TALBOT. 

THE  exigencies  of  the  public  service  during  the  War  for  Independence  often- 
times made  officers  amphibious — called  to  duty  on  land  and  water — as  in 
the  case  of  Arnold,  Drayton,  and  others.  Silas  Talbot  was  of  this  class,  and  one 
of  the  bravest  and  most  devoted.  His  memory  has  been  rescued  from  oblivion 
by  an  accomplished  writer  of  our  day  (II.  T.  Tuckerman,  Esq.),  who,  with  in- 
finite pains,  has  grouped  the  chief  incidents  of  his  checkered  life  into  a  miniature 
volume.  Our  hero  was  a  lineal  descendant  of  Sir  Richard  do  Talbot  of  the  time 
of  William  the  Conqueror,  and  seems  to  have  inherited  the  martial  taste  of  his 
illustrious  ancestor.  He  was  a  native  of  Rhode  Island,  but  little  is  known  of 
his  early  life.  Ho  was  a  young  man  when  the  war  broke  out,  and  he  entered 
heartily  into  the  contest.  He  then  resided  in  Providence,  where  he  had  married, 
in  1772,  and  built  himself  a  house,  with  his  own  earnings.  Early  in  1775,  he 
had  organized  a  little  company  of  volunteers ;  and,  in  June  following,  the  State 
gave  him  the  commission  of  captain  in  one  of  its  regiments.  Ho  joined  the  camp 
at  Roxbury,  was  active  during  that  campaign,  and  accompanied  the  army  to 
New  York,  in  the  Spring  of  17  7  G.  There  ho  performed  some  daring  exploits 
against  the  British  shipping  in  the  harbor,  which  elicited  the  thanks  of  Congress, 
and  procured  him  a  major's  commission.  In  the  Autumn  of  1777,  he  was  in  the 
memorable  siege  of  Fort  Mifflin,  on  the  Delaware,  where  he  was  twice  badly 
wounded.  The  following  year  we  find  Major  Talbot  busily  engaged  in  furnish- 
ing boats  for  General  Sullivan  to  transport  his  troops  across  the  channel  at  the 
upper  end  of  Rhode  Island ;  and  from  that  time,  until  the  evacuation  of  the 
Island,  by  the  British,  he  was  active  in  all  military  and  naval  events,  in  that 
vicinity.  In  the  Autumn  of  1779,  ho  was  commissioned  a  captain  in  the  navy, 
and  ho  afterward  made  as  successful  cruises,  as  he  had  already  during  his  six 
months  of  naval  command  previous  to  the  date  of  his  commission.  He  was 
captured  by  a  small  British  fleet,  in  1780,  and  suffered  the  horrors  of  the  Jersey 
prison-ship,1  and  the  Provost  jail,  at  New  York,  for  several  months.  Ho  was 

1.  This  was  an  old  bulk,  moored  where  the  Brooklyn  Navy  Yard  now  is,  and  used  as  a  prison  for 
captured  American  seamen.     Soldiers  were  also  immured  there.    Several  thousands  perished  of  famine 


212  NATHAN   HALE. 


finally  taken  to  England,  and  exchanged  at  the  close  of  1781.  After  the  war, 
he  purchased  a  portion  of  the  forfeited  estate  of  Sir  William  Johnson's  heirs,  on 
the  Mohawk,  and  retired  to  private  life.  In  1794,  when  a  new  organization  of 
the  navy  took  place,  Captain  Talbot  was  called  into  the  public  service ;  and  he 
superintended  the  construction  of  the  Constitution,  which  became  his  flag-ship, 
in  1799,  while  on  a  cruise  in  the  West  Indies,  with  the  afterward  renowned 
commander  of  the  same  ship  (Hull),  as  his  lieutenant.  Talbot  remained  in  active 
service  until  1801,  when  he  resigned  his  commission,  took  up  his  abode  in  the 
city  of  New  York,  and  lived  in  retirement  until  his  death,  on  the  30th  of  June, 
1813.  His  remains  were  buried  under  Trinity  Church. 


NATHAN    HALE. 

ONE  of  the  earliest  martyrs  in  the  cause  of  popular  liberty,  in  America,  was 
Captain  Nathan  Hale,  whose  fate,  and  that  of  Major  Andre,  history  may 
properly  parallel.  He  was  a  son  of  Eichard  Hale,  of  Coventry,  Connecticut,  and 
was  born  in  that  town,  twenty  miles  from  Hartford,  about  the  year  1754.  Ho 
was  graduated  at  Yale  College,  with  distinguished  approbation,  in  1773,  when 
the  tempest  of  the  Revolution  was  gathering  force.  JPired  with  zeal  for  liberty, 
he  joined  the  Connecticut  troops  that  hastened  to  Boston  after  the  skirmishes  at 
Lexington  and  Concord,  and  was  with  Captain  (afterward  Colonel)  Knowlton  in 
the  battle  on  Breed's  Hill.  He  continued  with  the  army  under  the  immediate 
command  of  Washington,  until  the  following  year,  and  participated  in  the  battle 
near  Brooklyn,  and  the  retreat  of  the  American  army,  from  Long  Island.  At 
that  time  Knowlton  was  in  command  of  a  regiment,  called  Congress'  Own,  that 
assumed  a  sort  of  body-guardianship  to  the  commander-in-chief,  and  young  Hale 
held  a  captain's  commission  in  it.  While  the  American  army  were  upon  Harlem 
Heights,  and  the  great  body  of  the  British  were  yet  on  Long  Island  (in  the 
vicinity  of  Brooklyn,  arid  of  the  present  Astoria),  Washington  was  very  anxious 
to  ascertain  the  exact  condition  of  the  enemy's  forces.  He  applied  to  Colonel 
Knowlton  for  a  judicious  person  to  go  as  a  spy  into  the  British  camp.  Captain 
Hale  volunteered  for  the  service,  and  bearing  instructions  from  Washington,  he 
crossed  Long  Island  Sound  from  the  Connecticut  shore,  visited  the  British 
camps,  made  notes  and  sketches,  unsuspected,  and  was  about  to  embark  from 
Huntington,  to  Connecticut,  when  he  was  discovered  and  exposed,  it  is  said,  by 
a  Tory  relative,  and  was  made  a  prisoner.  He  was  taken  to  Sir  William  Howe's 
head-quarters  at  Turtle  Bay,  confined  in  Beekman's  green-house  in  the  garden, 
until  morning,  and  then,  without  the  form  of  a  regular  trial,  was  handed  over  to 
Cunningham,  the  brutal  provost-marshal  in  New  York,  for  execution  as  a  spy. 
That  wretch  would  not  allow  him  to  have  the  company  of  a  clergyman,  nor  the 
use  of  a  Bible ;  and  he  even  destroyed  the  letters  which  the  victim  had  written 
to  his  mother  and  sisters  during  the  night.  Amid  cruel  jeers  he  was  hanged, 
like  a  dog,  upon  an  apple  tree,  and  his  body  was  buried  in  a  grave  beneath  its 
shadow.  He  suffered  death  in  accordance  with  the  stern  laws  of  war,  but  his 
treatment,  from  the  hour  of  his  capture  until  his  death,  was  disgraceful  to  the 
British  commander.  Hale's  last  words  were,  "  I  only  regret  that  I  have  not 
more  lives  to  give  to  my  country."1  A  beautiful  monument  has  been  erected  to 
his  memory  in  his  native  town. 

and  disease  in  that  loathsome  prison.    The  Provost  jail  was  also  a  place  of  horrors.    It  was  in  Liberty 
Street,  near  Nassau  Street. 

1.  A  full  account  of  Hale's  capture  and   death  may  be  found  in  Onderdonk's  Revolutionary  Incidents 
on  Long  Island,  and  in  Lossing's  Pictorial  Field-Book  of  the  Revolution. 


ALEXANDER   HAMILTON. 


213 


ALEXANDER    HAMILTON. 

A  ROUND  the  name  of  Hamilton,  the  pure  patriot,  the  brave  soldier,  the  ac- 
XJL  complished  statesman,  and  acute  financier,  there  is  a  halo  which  brightens 
with  the  lapse  of  years,  for  he  was  peerless  among  his  fellows.  He  was  a  native 
of  the  island  of  Nevis,  in  the  West  Indies,  and  was  descended  from  a  Scotch 
father  and  a  French  mother.  He  was  born  on  the  llth  of  January,  1757.  Ho 
received  a  fair  education  in  childhood,  and  at  the  age  of  twelve  years  he  became 
a  clerk  in  the  mercantile  house  of  Nicholas  Cruger,  at  St.  Croix.  Every  leisure 
moment  he  devoted  to  study ;  and  while  yet  a  mere  youth,  a  production  of  his 
pen  gave  such  evidence  of  great  genius,  that  the  friends  of  his  widowed  mother 
provided  means  for  sending  him  to  New  York  to  be  thoroughly  educated.  At 
the  age  of  sixteen  years  he  accompanied  his  mother  to  the  United  States,  and 
entered  King's  (now  Columbia)  College  as  a  student,  where  he  remained  about 
three  years.  The  contest  of  words,  with  Great  Britain,  was  then  raging,  and 
gave  scope  to  his  thoughts  and  topics  for  his  pen.  "When  only  seventeen  years 
of  age  he  appeared  as  a  speaker  at  public  meetings,  and  he  assisted  the  Sons  of 
Liberty  in  carrying  off  British  cannon  from  the  battery  of  Fort  George,  at  the 
foot  of  Broadway,  in  1775.  He  entered  the  army  as  captain  of  an  artillery  com- 
pany, raised  chiefly  by  himself,  and  performed  good  service  at  White  Plains, 
Trenton,  and  Princeton.  His  pen  was  as  active  as  his  sword,  and  many  articles, 
attributed  to  more  mature  and  eminent  men,  were  the  offspring  of  his  brain. 


214  WILLIAM   GRAY. 


He  attracted  the  special  attention  of  Washington,  and  in  March,  1777,  the  com- 
mander-in-chief  appointed  him  his  aid-de-camp,  -with  the  rank  of  lieutenant- 
colonel.  During  the  remainder  of  the  war,  until  the  capture  of  Cornwallis  in 
the  Autumn  of  1781,  he  was  Washington's  chief  secretary,  and  was  also  the 
leader  of  a  corps  of  light  infantry,  under  La  Fayette,  at  the  siege  of  Yorktown. 
After  that  event  he  left  the  army,  and,  in  1782,  was  admitted  to  practice  at  the 
bar  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  of  New  York.  He  was  a  member  of 
Congress  during  that  year,  but  declined  a  reelection.  He  had  married  a  daughter 
of  General  Philip  Schuyler,  in  .17 80,  and  he  looked  to  his  profession  for  the  sup- 
port of  his  family.  He  rose  to  distinction  very  rapidly,  yet  in  the  midst  of  his 
extensive  business,  he  found  time  to  employ  his  pen  upon  subjects  of  national 
importance.  He  was  a  member  of  the  convention  that  framed  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution, and  in  connection  with  Madison  and  Jay,  wrote  the  series  of  articles 
in  favor  of  that  instrument,  known  as  The  Federalist.  Of  the  eighty-five  num- 
bers, Hamilton  wrote  fifty-four.  He  was  also  a  member  of  the  State  convention, 
held  at  Poughkeepsie  in  1788,  that  ratified  the  Constitution.  When,  in  1789, 
the  new  government  was  organized,  Washington,  on  the  earnest  recommenda- 
tion of  Robert  Morris,  placed  Mr.  Hamilton  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury.  It  was 
a  wise  choice,  for  financial  difficulties  were  more  formidable  than  any  others  in 
the  way  of  the  administration,  and  no  man  was  more  capable  of  bringing  order 
out  of  confusion,  than  Mr.  Hamilton.  His  consummate  skill  soon  regulated 
money  matters ;  but  while  he  was  improving  the  fiscal  condition  of  the  govern- 
ment, ho  was  injuring  his  own.  He  accordingly  resigned  his  office,  in  1795,  and 
turned  his  attention  to  his  profession.  When  a  provisional  army  was  raised,  in 
1798,  Washington  accepted  the  commission  of  commander-in-chief,  only  on  con- 
dition that  Hamilton  should  be  his  associate,  and  second  in  command.  This 
was  Hamilton's  last  public  service.  In  the  Winter  of  1804,  he  became  involved 
in  a  political  dispute  with  Colonel  Aaron  Burr,  which  resulted  in  a  duel  in  July 
following.  They  met  at  Hoboken,  and  upon  the  same  spot  where  his  son  was 
killed  in  a  duel  a  few  years  previously,  Hamilton  was  mortally  wounded,  and 
died  the  next  day,  July  12th,  1804,  at  the  age  of  little  more  than  forty-seven 
years.  His  wife  survived  him,  in  widowhood,  fifty  years.  She  died  on  the  9th 
of  November,  1854,  at  the  age  of  ninety-seven  years  and  three  months.  The 
voluminous  papers  of  General  Hamilton  were  purchased  by  Congress,  and  after 
being  arranged  by  his  son,  John  C.  Hamilton,  they  were  published  in  seven 
octavo  volumes,  in  1841. 


WILLIAM    QUAY. 

THE  successful  and  honorable  merchant  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  integrals 
of  a  nation's  strength,  for  he  is  the  factor  of  the  nation's  labor  and  capital. 
Ono  of  the  most  eminent  in  this  profession  was  William  Gray.  He  was  born 
in  Lynn,  Massachusetts,  in  1751,  and  when  quite  a  small  boy,  was  apprenticed 
to  a  merchant  in  Salem.  He  finished  his  commercial  education  with  Richard 
Derby,1  of  that  port;  and  such  was  his  character  for  enterprise  and  strict  in- 
tegrity during  his  apprenticeship,  that  when,  soon  after  its  close,  he  commenced 


DAVID   HUMPHREYS.  215 


business  for  himself,  he  had  the  entire  confidence  and  good-will  of  the  whole 
community.  Prosperity  waited  upon  him  in  all  his  transactions,  and  in  less 
than  twenty-five  years  after  he  commenced  business,  he  was  taxed  as  the 
wealthiest  man  in  Salem,  notwithstanding  some  of  the  largest  fortunes  in  the 
United  States  belonged  to  men  of  that  town.  His  enterprise  and  industry  was 
wonderful ;  and  at  one  time  he  had  more  than  sixty  sail  of  square-rigged  vessels 
on  the  ocean.  For  more  than  fifty  years  he  arose  at  dawn,  and  was  ready  for 
the  business  of  the  day  before  others  had  finished  their  last  nap.  Although  he 
had  millions  of  dollars  afloat  on  the  sea  of  business,  he  was  careful  of  small  ex- 
penditures— those  leaks  which  endanger  the  ship — and  his  whole  life  was  a 
lesson  of  prudent  economy,  without  penuriousness. 

Mr.  Gray  was  a  democrat,  and  his  sincerity  was  evinced  by  the  fact  that  dur- 
ing the  embargo,  he  took  sides  with  Jefferson,  notwithstanding  all  New  England 
was  in  a  blaze  against  the  president,  and  it  was  an  injury  to  the  amount  of  tens 
of  thousands  of  dollars  to  the  great  merchant's  business.  In  the  rnidst  of  the 
commercial  distress,  he  removed  to  Boston,  and  having  pleased  the  people  while 
a  State  Senator,  he  was  chosen  lieutenant-governor  of  the  Commonwealth.  He 
used  his  immense  riches  for  the  wants  of  government,  and  never  took  advan- 
tages of  the  exigencies  of  the  times,  to  speculate  in  government  securities.  After 
the  war  of  181 2-'  15,  he  engaged  largely  in  business  again,  but  he  lost  often  and 
heavily.  Yet  he  died  a  rich  man,  honored,  and  beloved  for  his  virtues,  on  the 
4th  of  November,  1825,  at  the  age  of  about  seventy -four  years. 


DAVID    HUMPHREYS. 

IT  is  inscribed  upon  a  neat  granite  monument,  in  a  cemetery  at  New  Haven, 
Connecticut,  that  "David  Humphreys,  doctor  of  laws,  member  of  the  Acad- 
emy of  Sciences  of  Philadelphia,  Massachusetts,  and  Connecticut,  of  the  Bath 
[Agricultural  Society]  and  of  the  Royal  Society  of  London,"  was  "  a  distinguished 
historian  and  poet ;  a  model  and  a  patron  of  science,  and  of  the  ornamental  and 
useful  arts."  He  was  born  in  Derby,  Connecticut,  in  1753,  and  was  graduated 
at  Yale  College,  in  1771.  A  few  months  afterward,  he  went  to  reside,  as  a  tutor, 
in  the  family  of  Colonel  Philipse,1  of  the  Philipse  Manor,  on  the  Hudson.  How 
long  he  remained  in  that  capacity  we  have  no  record,  and  we  lose  sight  of  the 
future  "historian  and  poet"  until  the  war  of  the  Revolution  began,  when  we 
find  him  at  the  head  of  a  company  of  Connecticut  militia.  He  afterward  joined 
the  Continental  army,  with  a  captain's  commission,  and  was  under  the  immediate 
command  of  General  Putnam  until  1778,  when  that  officer  made  him  one  of  his 
aids,  with  the  rank  of  major.  He  held  that  commission  until  the  Autumn  of  1780, 
when  ho  was  promoted  to  the  office  of  aid  to  "Washington,  with  the  rank  of 
colonel.  He  remained  in  the  military  family  of  the  commander-in-chief  until  the 
close  of  the  war.  For  his  valor  at  Yorktown,  where  Cornwallis  was  captured, 
Congress  honored  him  with  a  vote  of  thanks,  and  the  present  "of  an  elegant 
sword. 

In  May,  1784,  Colonel  Humphreys  was  appointed  secretary  to  the  commission 
for  negotiating  treaties  with  foreign  powers,  and  with  his  friend  Kosciusczko,  ac- 
companied Mr.  Jefferson  to  Paris.  He  returned  in  1786,  and  was  elected  to  a 
seat  in  the  Connecticut  legislature.  He  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  a 
regiment  raised  for  the  western  service,  but  was  not  called  to  the  field ;  and  from 

1.  Brother  of  Mary  Philipse,  wife  cf  Colonel  Roger  Morri?.     See  page  227. 


216  JOHN  MARSHALL. 


1786  till  1788,  he  resided  at  Hartford,  where,  with  Trumbull,  Barlow,  and  Hop- 
kins, he  wrote  the  Anarchiad.  By  invitation  of  Washington,  Colonel  Humphreys 
resided  in  the  family  of  the  great  Patriot  from  1788  until  appointed  by  his  il- 
lustrious friend  minister  to  Portugal,  in  1790.  He  went  thither  in  1791,  and 
returned  in  1794.  He  was  soon  afterward  appointed  minister  to  Spain,  and  took 
up  his  abode  at  Madrid,  early  in  1795.  "While  there  he  negotiated  treaties  with 
Tripoli  and  Algiers,  and  was  successful  in  all  his  diplomatic  duties.  He  was 
succeeded  in  office  by  General  Thomas  Pinckney,  in  1802,  and  then  returned 
home.  The  year  previously,  he  sent  a  flock  of  one  hundred  merino  sheep  to 
America,  the  first  ever  seen  in  this  country,  and  the  cultivation  of  this  valuable 
stock  was  his  chief  employment  during  the  latter  years  of  his  life.  He  took 
command  of  the  militia  of  Connecticut,  in  1812,  but  was  not  in  actual  service. 
Being  blessed  with  ample  pecuniary  means, '  he  lived  in  elegant  retirement  until 
his  sudden  death,  which  was  caused  by  an  organic  disease  of  the  heart.  That 
event  occurred  on  the  21st  of  February,  1818,  when  ho  was  sixty-five  years  of 
age. 

Colonel  Humphreys  wrote  much  in  prose  and  verse.  In  1782,  he  published 
quite  a  long  poetical  address  to  the  armies  of  the  United  States.  He  wrote  a 
number  of  smaller  poems,  a  tragedy,  arid  several  political  tracts;  and,  in  1788, 
he  wrote  a  Life  of  General  Putnam,  from  narratives  uttered  by  the  old  hero'3 
lips,  carefully  written  out. 


JOHN    MARSHALL. 

THE  long-honored  patriot,  and  eminent  chief  justice  of  the  United  States,  John 
Marshall,  was  born  at  Germantown,  in  Fauquier  county,  Virginia,  on  the 
24th  of  September,  1755,  and  was  the  eldest  of  fifteen  children  by  the  same 
mother.  He  received  some  classical  instruction  in  early  youth,  and  from  child- 
hood he  evinced  a  taste  for  literature  and  general  knowledge.  He  became 
physically  vigorous  by  field  sports,  and  his  solitary  meditations  were  generally 
amid  the  wildest  natural  scenery.  When  Dunmore  invaded  Lower  Virginia,  in 
1775,  young  Marshall  was  appointed  lieutenant  in  the  "minute  battalion,"  and, 
with  his  father,  performed  good  service  in  the  battle  at  the  Great  Bridge,  near 
the  Dismal  Swamp.  In  July,  the  following  year,  he  was  attached  to  the  Vir- 
ginia Continental  line,  with  the  same  commission;  and,  early  in  1777,  he  joined 
the  army  under  Washington.  He  was  in 'the  battles  of  Brandy  wine  and  Ger- 
mantown, suffered  at  Valley  Forge,  and  fought  at  Monmouth  in  the  Summer  of 
1778,  as  commander  of  a  Virginia  company.  He  remained  in  service  until  early 
in  1780,  when  he  turned  his  attention  to  the  study  of  the  law.  He  attended 
the  lectures  of  Mr.  Wythe  (afterward  chancellor  of  Virginia),  and  toward  the 
close  of  Summer  was  admitted  to  practice.  A  few  months  afterward,  Virginia 
was  invaded  by  Arnold,  and  Marshall  again  joined  the  army  in  defence  of  his 
native  State.  There  being  a  redundancy  of  officers,  he  soon  resigned  his  com- 
mission, but  he  had  no  opportunity  to  practice  his  profession  until  after  the  cap- 
ture of  Cornwallis,  in  the  Autumn  of  1781.  He  then  soon  rose  to  distinction  as 
a  lawyer;  and,  in  the  Spring  of  1782,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Virginia 
legislature.  In  the  Autumn  of  that  year  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  exec- 
utive council. 

In  January,  1783,  Mr.  Marshall  married  a  daughter  of  the  treasurer  of  Vir- 
ginia, and  they  lived  together  about  fifty  years.     He  resigned  his  seat  at  the 

1.  In  1797,  Colonel  Humphreys  married  the  daughter  of  a  very  wealthy  English  merchant,  cf  Lisbon. 


JOHN   MARSHALL. 


217 


council  board,  in  1784,  and  immediately  afterward  (though  a  resident  of  Rich- 
mond) he  was  chosen  to  represent  his  native  county  in  the  legislature.  He 
represented  Henrico  county,  in  1787.  In  the  Virginia  convention  called  to  con- 
sider the  Federal  Constitution,  Mr.  Marshall  was  one  of  the  most  zealous  and 
effective  supporters  of  that  instrument.  He  served  in  the  Virginia  legislature 
until  1792,  when  he  again  devoted  his  whole  time  to  his  profession.  He  was 
a  member  of  the  Virginia  House  of  Delegates,  in  1795,  and  nobly  defended  Jay's 
memorable  treaty.1  His  speech,  on  that  occasion,  made  a  profound  impression 
in  America  and  Europe.  Soon  afterward,  he  was  sent  as  one  of  three  envoys 
extraordinary  to  the  government  of  France.  On  his  return,  he  was  elected  to  a 
seat  in  the  Federal  Congress.  "Within  three  weeks  after  entering  upon  his  duties 
there,  he  was  called  upon  to  announce,  in  that  body,  the  death  of  "Washington ! 
His  words,  on  that  occasion,  were  few  but  deeply  impressive.  His  career  in  the 
national  legislature  was  short,  for,  in  1800,  he  was  chosen  first  Secretary  of  "War, 
and  then  Secretary  of  State;  and,  in  January,  1801,  he  was  appointed  chief 
justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  From  that  time  he  discarded 
party  politics,  and  in  his  lofty  station  he  performed  his  exalted  duties  with  great 
dignity  and  unsuspected  integrity,  during  the  remainder  of  his  life.  He  was 


1.  See  sketch  of  John  Jay. 

10 


\ 


218  WILLIAM   WIRT. 


not  unmindfal  of  the  claims  .of  his  native  State,  and  as  his  residence  was  at  its 
capital,  he  frequently  assisted  in  public  duties.  This  eminent  jurist  died  at 
Philadelphia,  on  the  6th  of  July,  1835,  in  the  eightieth  year  of  his  age.  Two 
days  before  his  death  he  enjoined  his  friends  to  place  only  a  plain  slab  over  the 
graves  of  himself  and  wife,  and  he  wrote  the  simple  inscription  himself.1  Judge 
Marshall's  Life  of  Washington,  published  in  1805,  and  revised  and  republished  in 
1832,  is  a  standard  work. 


WILLIAM    WIRT. 

IT  has  been  well  observed  that  "it  is  the  peculiar  felicity  of  our  republican  in- 
stitutions, that  they  throw  no  impediment  in  the  career  of  merit,  but  the 
competition  of  rival  abilities."  Hundreds  of  the  leading  men  in  our  Republic 
have  illustrated  the  truth  of  this  sentiment,  and  none  more  so  than  the  accom- 
plished William  Wirt.  He  was  born  at  Bladensburg,  in  Maryland,  on  the  18th 
of  November,  1772,  and  was  left  a  poor  orphan  at  an  early  age.  His  paternal 
uncle  took  charge  of  him,  and  at  the  age  of  seven  years  he  was  placed  in  a  school 
at  Georgetown,  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  From  his  eleventh  until  his  fifteenth 
year  he  was  at  the  same  school  in  Montgomery  county,  continuously,  where  he 
was  taught  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages,  and  some  natural  philosophy.  He 
there  had  the  advantages  of  a  good  library,  and  improved  it ;  and  as  early  as 
his  thirteenth  year,  he  commenced  authorship  with  promise.  Young  Wirt  was 
a  tutor  in  the  family  of  the  late  Ninian  Edwards,  governor  of  Illinois,  for  about 
eighteen  months.  After  a  brief  residence  at  the  South,  on  account  of  ill-health, 
he  commenced  the  study  of  law  at  Montgomery  Court-house,  and  was  licensed 
to  practice,  in  the  Autumn  of  1792.  He  commenced  his  professional  career,  the 
same  year,  at  Culpepper  Court-house,  in  Virginia,  and  soon  became  eminent. 
With  vigorous  body  and  intellect,  pleasing  person  and  manners,  he  became  a 
favorite,  and  married  the  daughter  of  an  accomplished  gentleman  (the  intimate 
friend  of  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Monroe)  residing  near  Charlottesville.  His 
wife  died  in  1799,  and  in  deep  distress  Wirt  left  the  scenes  of  his  late  happy  life, 
went  to  Richmond,  and  was  clerk  of  the  House  of  Delegates  during  three  sessions. 
There  he  was  greatly  esteemed  for  his  talents  and  social  accomplishments,  and 
he  received  the  appointment,  in  1802,  of  chancellor  of  the  eastern  district  of 
Virginia.  In  the  Autumn  of  that  year  he  married  an  accomplished  young  lady 
of  Richmond,  and  soon  resumed  the  practice  of  the  law.  In  1803-'4,  he  wrote 
his  beautiful  essays  under  the  name  of  The  British  Spy,  and  at  about  the  same 
time  he  took  up  his  abode  in  Norfolk.  He  returned  to  Richmond,  in  1806,  and 
the  following  year  he  was  engaged  in  the  trial  of  Aaron  Burr,  for  treason.  His 
great  speech  on  that  occasion  was  warmly  applauded.  He  was  a  member  of 
the  Virginia  legislature,  in  1808,  and  from  that  time  until  after  the  war,  ho 

1.  Their  graves  are  in  the  plain  cemetery  on  Shoccoe  Hill,  Richmond,  and  the  inscription  is  as  follows  : 
"  JOHN  MARSHALL,  son  of  THOMAS  and  MARY  MARSHALL,  was  born  on  the  24th  of  September,  1755  ; 
intermarried  with  MARY  WILLIS  AMBLER,  the  3d  of  January,  1783 ;  departed  this  life  the  6th  day  of 
July,  1835."  Judge  Marshall  was  an  exceedingly  plain  man,  in  person  and  habits.  He  always  carried 
his  own  marketing  home  in  his  hands.  On  one  occasion,  a  young  housekeeper  was  swearing^  lustily 
because  he  could  not  hire  a  person  to  carry  his  turkey  home  for  him.  A  plain  man  standing  by, 
offered  to  perform  the  service,  and  when  they  arrived  at  the  door,  the  young  man  asked,  "  What  shall  I 
pay  you?"  "  Oh,  nothing,"  replied  the  old  man,  "you  are  welcome;  it  was  on  my  way,  and  no 
trouble."  "Who  is  that  polite  old  gentleman  who  brought  home  my  turkey  for  me?"  inquired  the 
young  man  of  a  bystander.  "  That,"  he  replied,  "  is  John  Marshall,  ch'ief  justice  of  the  United  States." 
The  astonished  young  man  exclaimed,  "  Why  did  he  bring  home  my  turkey?"  "  To  give  you  a  revere 
reprimand,"  replied  the  other,  "and  to  learn  you  to  attend  to  your  own  business."  The  lesson  was 
never  forgotten. 


WILLIAM  HULL.  219 


pursued  his  profession  successfully.  In  the  Winter  of  1S17-'18,  he  removed  to 
Washington  city,  having  received,  from  Mr.  Monroe,  the  appointment  of  Attor- 
ney-general of  the  United  States.  He  held  that  office  through  three  presidential 
terms,  and  at  the  end  of  Mr.  Adams'  administration,  he  made  Baltimore  his 
residence.  In  1832,  he  was  nominated  by  the  Anti-Masonic  party  for  President 
of  the  United  States,  but  received  the  majority  of  the  electoral  votes  in  only  one 
State — Vermont.  During  1833  he  was  engaged  in  founding  a  colony  of  Germans, 
in  Florida.  It  proved  a  failure.  In  January  following  ho  attended  the  Supreme 
Court  at  Washington,  and  his  feebleness  of  health  was  then  very  much  increased 
by  hearing  of  the  death  of  his  eldest  daughter.  A  severe  cold  hastened  the 
progress  of  his  disease,  and  on  the  18th  of  February,  1834,  he  expired,  at  the 
age  of  sixty-three  years.  His  Life  of  Patrick  Henry  is  the  most  brilliant  of  the 
published  productions  of  his  pen. 


WILLIAM    HULL. 

"  T  CAN  wait,"  said  the  great  and  good  Lavater,  when  an  enemy  assailed  his 
JL  character.  Many  injured  men  have  been  compelled  to  wait,  and  finally  to 
go  into  the  grave  without  the  solace  of  vindication ;  yet  posterity,  more  just 
than  cotemporaries,  usually  render  a  righteous  judgment.  General  William 
Hull,  a  brave  patriot  of  the  Revolution,  waited  many  long  years  for  a  vindica- 
tion of  his  character  from  the  imputations  of  cowardice,  and  even  of  treason, 
uttered  by  a  judicial  verdict  and  the  prejudices  of  public  opinion.  Long  after 
he  fell  asleep  in  death,  his  vindication  was  made  complete.  He  was  a  native 
of  Derby,  Connecticut,  where  he  was  born  on  the  24th  of  June,  1753.  He 
acquired  physical  vigor  while  a  youth,  by  farm  labor,  and  at  the  age  of  fifteen 
years  he  entered  Yale  College,  as  a  student.  He  was  graduated  with  usual 
honors,  in  1772.  His  parents  designed  him  for  the  ministry,  but  on  leaving 
college  he  became  tutor  of  a  school,  for  awhile,  then  reluctantly  began  the  study 
of  Divinity,  and  finally  became  a  student  in  the  Law  School  at  Litchfield,  Con- 
necticut. He  was  successful,  and  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  in  1775.  He  was 
soon  afterward  elected  captain  of  a  militia  company,  and  joined  the  army  under 
Washington,  at  Cambridge.  He  continued  with  Washington  during  the  siege 
of  Boston,  and  the  subsequent  operations  in  the  vicinity  of  New  York  and  in 
New  Jersey.  He  acted  as  field  officer  in  the  battle  at  Trenton,  and  soon  after- 
ward Washington  promoted  him  to  major  in  a  Massachusetts  regiment.  He 
behaved  bravely  in  the  battle  at  Princeton.  In  the  following  May  he  marched 
some  recruits  to  Ticonderoga,  and  was  active  during  the  Summer  and  Autumn 
of  that  year,  until  Burgoyne  was  humbled  at  Saratoga.  In  the  battles  on  that 
occasion,  he  was  particularly  distinguished.  He  suffered  at  Yalley  Forge,  fought 
at  Monmouth,  and  in  the  Autumn  was  in  command  of  a  regiment,  first  at  Pough- 
keepsie,  and  then  at  White  Plains.  He  was  at  the  capture  of  Stony  Point,  in 
the  Summer  of  1779,  and  he  was  soon  afterward  promoted  to  the  rank  of  lieuten- 
ant-colonel. His  services  now  became  multifarious,  and  until  the  close  of  the 
war,  he  was  regarded  by  General  Washington  as  one  of  his  most  useful  officers. 
When,  after  the  treaty  of  peace,  in  1783,  the  British  still  retained  possession 
of  several  frontier  forts,  in  violation  of  the  stipulations  of  that  treaty,  Colonel 
Hull  was  sent  to  Quebec,  by  the  United  States  government,  to  make  a  formal 
demand  upon  the  governor-general  of  Canada  for  their  immediate  surrender.  On 
his  return,  he  made  his  residence  at  Newton,  Massachusetts;  and,  in  1786,  he 
was  one  of  General  Lincoln's  volunteer  aids  in  quelling  the  insurrection  known 


220  ABRAHAM   WHIPPLE. 

as  Shay's  Rebellion.  He  was  also  very  active  in  civil  affairs.  In  1793,  ho  was 
appointed  a  commissioner  to  make  arrangements  with  the  British  government 
to  hold  a  treaty  with  the  "Western  Indians.  He  visited  England  and  France,  in 
1798,  and  soon  after  his  return,  was  honored  with  the  office  of  judge  of  the 
court  of  Common  Pleas,  and  the  commission  of  major-general  in  the  militia  of 
Massachusetts.  He  was  also  elected  a  State  Senator,  and  was  employed  in 
various  public  duties  until  1805,  when  Congress  appointed  him  governor  of  the 
Michigan  Territory.  He  held  that  office  when  war  was  declared  against  Great 
Britain,  in  1812,  at  which  time  he  was  at  the  head  of  an  army,  marching  to 
crush  the  power  of  hostile  Indians.  He  was  immediately  commissioned  one  of 
the  four  brigadiers  to  assist  General  Dearborn,  the  commander-in-chief.  In  the 
comparatively  weak  fort  at  Detroit,  he  was  invested  by  a  strong  force  of  British 
and  Indians ;  and,  to  save  his  command  from  almost  certain  destruction,  he  sur- 
rendered the  fort,  his  army  of  two  thousand  men,  and  the  Territory,  to  the  enemy. 
For  this  he  was  tried  for  treason  and  cowardice,  and  being  unable  to  produce 
certain  official  testimony  which  subsequently  vindicated  his  character,  he  was 
found  guilty  of  the  latter,  and  sentenced  to  be  shot.  The  President  of  the  United 
States,  "in  consideration  of  his  age  and  revolutionary  services,"  pardoned  him, 
but  a  cloud  was  upon  his  fame  and  honor.  He  published  a  vindicatory  memoir, 
in  1824,  which  changed  public  opinion  in  his  favor.  Yet  he  did  not  live  long  to 
enjoy  the  effects  of  that  change.  He  died  at  Newton,  on  the  29th  of  November, 
1825,  at  the  age  of  seventy-two  years.  A  Memoir  of  General  Hull,  by  his 
daughter  and  grandson,  was  published  in  1848.  It  fully  vindicates  the  character 
of  the  injured  patriot,  by  documentary  evidence. 


ABRAHAM    WHIPPLE. 

"  VOU,  Abraham  Whipple,  on  the  17th  of  June,  1772,  burned  his  majesty's 
JL      vessel,  the  Gaspe,  and  I  will  hang  you  at  the  yard  arm. 

"  JAMES  WALLACE." 
"  To  SIR  JAMES  WALLACE  : 

"  SIR, — Always  catch  a  man  before  you  hang  him. 

"ABRAHAM  WHIPPLE." 

Such  was  the  correspondence  between  two  opposing  naval  commanders  in  Nar- 
raganset  Bay,  in  the  Summer  of  1775.  Whipple  was  a  native  of  Providence, 
situated  at  the  head  of  that  bay,  where  he  was  born  in  1733.  He  received  very 
little  education,  and  from  earliest  youth  his  life  was  spent  chiefly  upon  the  ocean. 
He  was  in  the  merchant  service  for  many  years,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven 
he  was  commander  of  a  privateer  named  The  Game  Cock.  During  a  single 
cruise,  in  17  GO,  he  took  twenty -three  French  prizes.  When  the  colonists  and 
the  mother  government  quarrelled,  Captain  Whipple  espoused  the  cause  of  his 
countrymen,  and  was  among  those  who  committed  the  first  overt  act  of  rebel- 
lion, in  New  England,  in  the  burning  of  the  British  armed  schooner,  Gaspe, 
above  alluded  to.1  Captain  Whipple  sailed  on  a  trading  voyage  to  the  West 
Indies  soon  afterward,  and  did  not  return  until  1774. 

1.  The  Gaspe  was  stationed  in  Narragansct  Bay  to  enforce  the  revenue  laws.  While  chasing  an 
American  vessel  up  the  bay,  it  ran  aground  on  a  sandy  shoal.  Captain  Whipple  and  a  number  of  sea- 
men went  down  the  bay  on  the  night  of  the  17th  of  June,  boarded  the  schooner,  captured  the  commander 
and  crew,  and  then  burned  the  vessel.  Notwithstanding  a  commission  was  appointed  to  investigate  the 
affair,  and  a  large  reward  was  offered  for  the  perpetrators,  their  names  were  not  made  known  until  war 
with  Great  Britain  had  actually  commenced. 


ABRAHAM  WHIFFLE. 


221 


In  the  Spring  of  1775,  Sir  James  Wallace,  in  command  of  the  British  frigate 
Hose,  blockaded  Narraganset  Bay.  The  legislature  of  Rhode  Island  fitted  out 
two  vessels  for  the  purpose  of  driving  the  intruder  away.  These  were  under 
the  general  command  of  Whipple,  and  he  soon  expelled  Wallace  from  the  Rhode 
Island  waters.  In  this  business  Whipplo  had  the  honor  of  firing  the  first  gun 
in  the  naval  service  of  the  Revolution.1  In  the  Autumn  following,  Captain 
Whipple  was  ordered  on  a  cruise  to  the  Bermudas,  to  seize  powder,  but  was 
unsuccessful.  In  December,  he  received  a  commander's  commission,  from  Con- 
gress; and,  in  February,  1776,  he  sailed  on  a  cruise  in  the  squadron  of  Com- 
modore Hopkins,  the  naval  commander-in-chief.  From  that  time  until  the  fall 
of  Charleston,  in  May,  1780,  he  was  in  active  service.  There  he  was  in  command 
of  quite  a  strong,  but  inadequate  naval  force,  all  of  which  remaining  above  water,3 
became  spoils  for  the  victors.  For  two  years  and  seven  months  he  remained  a 
prisoner  on  parole,  in  Pennsylvania,  when  he  was  exchanged.  He  left  the  ser- 
vice;, in  1782,  and  was  allowed  to  go  almost  entirely  unrequited  to  a  citizen's 


1.  A  British  vessel  had  been  captured  at  Mac  bias  earlier  than  this,  but  no  authority  had  been  given  for 
the  act.    Whipple  was  the  first  to  act  legally. 

2.  Whipple  sunk  several  of  his  vessels  to  prevent  British  ships  from  going  up  the  Cooper  river 
channel. 


222  DANIEL  MORGAN. 


duty.  He  took  command  of  a  merchant  ship,  and  had  the  honor  of  first  unfurl- 
ing the  American  flag  in  the  river  Thames,  at  London.  He  was  elected  to  a 
seat  in  the  Rhode  Island  legislature,  in  1786.  On  the  formation  of  the  Ohio 
company,  he  emigrated  to  the  wilderness,  in  company  with  General  Rufus  Put- 
nam, and  was  among  the  founders  of  Marietta.  He  was  then  fifty-five  years  of 
age.  The  threatening  savages  that  hung  around  this  settlement  until  the  peace 
negotiated  with  the  Indians,  in  1795,  called  into  action  the  great  resources  of 
his  genius,  and  he  was  of  essential  service  to  the  colony.  After  that  treaty  of 
peace,  he  moved  to  a  small  farm  on  the  banks  of  the  Muskingum,  where  he 
struggled  on  in  poverty  until  1811,  when  Congress  granted  him  the  half-pay  of 
a  naval  captain.1  His  future  years  were  thus  made  to  him  seasons  of  ease  and 
absence  from  care.  They  were  few,  however,  for  he  was  seventy-eight  years  of 
age  when  tardy  justice  awarded  its  benefits.  Commodore  Whipple  died  near 
Marietta,  on  the  29th  of  May,  1819,  at  the  age  of  eighty-five  years.  Over  his 
grave,  at  Marietta,  is  a  neat  stone,  bearing  an  appropriate  inscription. 


DANIEL    MORGAN. 

"  A  H,  people  said  old  Morgan  never  feared — they  thought  old  Morgan  never 
.li  prayed — they  did  not  know — old  Morgan  Was  often  miserably  afraid." 
So  talked  that  "thunderbolt  of  war" — the  "brave  Morgan,  who  never  knew 
fear,"  as  the  chronicler  said — to  his  children  and  neighbors  when  they  sat  and 
listened  to  his  thrilling  stories  of  the  campaigns  for  freedom.2  He  was  of  Welsh 
descent,  and  was  born  in  New  Jersey,  in  the  year  1736.  His  family  were  in 
humble  circumstances,  and  his  education  was  only  such  as  could  be  acquired  at  an 
ordinary  country  school,  at  that  time.  At  the  age  of  seventeen  he  wandered  into 
Virginia,  and  there  became  a  wagoner  for  one  of  the  wealthy  planters  in  Fred- 
erick county.  He  owned  a  team  when  Braddock  marched  to  the  fatal  field  of 
the  Monongahela,  and  he  accompanied  that  expedition  as  a  bearer  of  supplies. 
For  alleged  insult  to  a  British  officer,  he  received  five  hundred  lashes  almost 
without  flinching.  A  few  days  afterward  the  officer  became  convinced  of  the 
injustice  of  the  charge,  and  apologized  to  }roung  Morgan,  in  the  presence  of  the 
whole  regiment.  His  love  for  British  officers  was  never  very  ardent  afterward ; 
and  when  they  became  his  foes  on  the  field,  the  remembrance  of  that  degrading 
punishment  gave  strength  to  his  arm  and  keenness  to  his  blade. 

In  1756,  Morgan  was  commissioned  an  ensign  in  the  provincial  army,  because 
of  his  military  skill  and  service  in  the  former  campaign,  and  then  he  first  be- 
came acquainted  with  Washington.  From  that  time  until  the  Revolution  com- 
menced, he  was  much  in  service  against  the  Indians;  and  tradition  tells  a 
hundred  tales  of  his  great  daring.  In  1774,  he  owned  a  line  farm  in  Frederick 
county,  and  that  year  he  was  in  Dunmore's  expedition  beyond  the  Alleghanies. 
In  May,  1775,  Congress  appointed  him  a  captain,  and  in  less  than  a  week  there- 
after, ninety-six  men — the  nucleus  of  his  celebrated  rifle  corps — were  enrolled 
under  his  banner,  and  were  on  their  way  to  Boston.  He  led  the  van  of  Arnold's 
wonderful  expedition  from  the  Kennebeck  to  the  St.  Lawrence,  in  the  Autumn 

1.  In  the  year  1800,  the  veteran  sailor  was  permitted  to  breathe  the  salt  air  of  the  ocean  once  again. 
Some  enterprising  men  at  Marietta  built  a  square-rigged  vessel  there,  named  it  St.  Clair,  and,  loading  it 
with  pork  and  flour,  sent  it  to  Havana.     Commodore  Whipple  was  appointed  its  commander,  and  he 
performed  the  voyage  successfully.    He  thus  had  the  honor  of  navigating  the  first  vessel  that  ever  sailed 
from  the  Ohio  to  the  ttulf. 

2.  He  said  that  before  the  assault  on  Quebec,  where  Montgomery  was  killed,  he  knelt  by  the  side  of  a 
cannon  and  prayed  fervently  ;  and  when,  at  the  Cowpens,  he  was  compelled  to  fight  the  superior  force 
of  Tarleton,  he  went  aside,  before  the  battle,  and  prayed  earnestly  for  his  country,  his  army,  and  him- 
self, and  then,  iu  his  rough  way,  cheered  on  his  men. 


LEONARD   CALVERT.  223 


of  1775  ;  and  in  tho  siege  of  Quebec,  ho  Iccljtlio  forlorn  hope  of  Arnold's  division. 
When  Arnold  was  wounded  there,  Morgan  took  command,  fought  desperately, 
and  was  made  prisoner.1  When  exchanged,  he  was  commissioned  a  colonel  in 
tho  Continental  army,  and  from  that  time  Washington  considered  Morgan's  riflo 
corps  tho  right  arm  of  his  forces.  Ho  was  the  chief  instrument  in  the  capture 
of  Burgoyne,  in  tho  Autumn  of  1777  ;  and  because  of  his  brilliant  achievements 
on  that  occasion,  his  neighbors  called  his  fine  estate  "Saratoga."  Ho  received 
the  commission  of  brigadier,  and  was  one  of  the  most  active  officers  in  the  Southern 
campaigns.  His  military  glory  culminated  when,  on  the  17th  of  January,  1781, 
he  defeated  the  British,  under  Tarleton,  at  the  Cowpens,  west  of  tho  Broad 
river,  in  South  Carolina.  For  that  achievement  Congress  awarded  him  the 
thanks  of  tho  nation,  and  a  gold  medal.  In  consequence  of  the  infirm  state  of 
his  health,  he  then  left  the  service,  and  retired  to  his  farm,  where  he  devoted 
himself  to  agricultural  pursuits.  Washington  desired  him  to  bo  placed  at  the 
head  of  the  expedition  against  the  Western  Indians,  in  1791,  but  St.  Clair  was 
chosen.  In  1794,  ho  commanded  the  troops  in  Western  Pennsylvania,  designed 
to  secure  tho  power  over  the  whiskey  insurgents,  obtained  by  General  Lee.  He 
was  elected  to  Congress  the  same  year,  where  he  served  two  sessions.  He  re- 
moved to  Winchester,  Virginia,  in  the  year  1800,  where,  after  confinement  to 
his  house  and  bed  by  extreme  debility,  ho  expired,  on  the  6th  of  July,  1802,  in 
the  sixty-sixth  year  of  his  age.  His  remains  rest  beneath  a  marble  slab,  ap- 
propriately inscribed,  in  tho  Presbyterian  grave-yard  at  Winchester. 


LEONARD    CALVERT. 

A  LTHOUGH  George  Calvert,  who  was  created  Lord  Baltimore  by  James  the 
A.  First  of  England,  was  the  founder  of  Maryland,  yet  tho  chief  honor  is  due 
to  his  younger  son,  Leonard,  because  he  led  the  first  colony  thither,  planted  it, 
and  laid  the  broad  foundations  of  that  commonwealth,  in  social  and  political  in- 
stitutions. He  was  born  about  the  year  1GOG,  when  his  father  was  clerk  of  the 
Privy  Council  under  the  patronage  of  Robert  Cecil,  James'  Secretary  of  State. 
His  father  died  in  April,  1632,  just  before  his  patent  for  Maryland  had  possessed 
the  seals  of  office.  He  was  succeeded  by  his  eldest  son,  Cecil.  The  charter  was 
completed  in  June,  1632,  and  Leonard  Calvert,  with  about  two  hundred  persons 
of  good  families,  all  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith,  reached  Old  Point  Comfort, 
near  the  entrance  to  Chesapeake  Bay,  in  February,  1634.  Ho  was  appointed 
governor  of  tho  colony  which  he  was  sent  to  plant.  As  they  passed  up  the  bay, 
and  entered  the  broad  Potomac,  Calvert  fired  a  cannon,  erected  a  cross,  and  took 
possession  of  the  country  "  in  the  name  of  the  Saviour  of  tho  world  and  of  the 
king  of  England."  At  the  mouth  of  a  creek  on  the  north  side  of  tho  Potomac, 
the  settlers  pitched  their  tents,  founded  a  town  which  they  called  St.  Mary's, 
named  the  creek  St.  George,  and  there  began  the  noblo  business  of  building  up 
a  free  State  in  the  wilderness.  They  dealt  justly  with  tho  natives,  and  pros- 
pered. To  every  emigrant,  fifty  acres  of  land,  in  fee,  were  granted ;  and,  ac- 
cording to  the  terms  of  the  charter,  every  person  who  professed  a  belief  in  tho 
Trinity,  of  whatever  sect,  Protestant  or  Roman  Catholic,  was  allowed  full  priv- 
ilege to  worship  as  he  pleased.  This  toleration  was  a  noblo  feature  in  that  first 
charter  of  Maryland,  and  is  very  properly  regarded  with  prido  by  the  descendants 
of  those  early  colonists. 

1.  While  a  prisoner,  he  was  urged  to  accept  the  commission  of  a  colonel  in  the  British  army,  but  'ho 
indignantly  r  of  used  it. 


224  NOAH   WEBSTEE. 


Governor  Calvert  built  himself  a  commodious  house  at  St.  Mary's,  and  was 
managing  the  affairs  of  the  province  with  prudence  and  energy,  when  the  civil 
war  in  England,  which  resulted  in  the  death  of  King  Charles  and  the  exaltation 
of  Oliver  Cromwell  to  the  seat  of  chief  magistrate  of  the  realm,  disturbed  the 
repose  of  all  the  Anglo-American  colonies.  Lord  Baltimore  was  deprived  of  his 
proprietary  rights,  and  Governor  Calvert  was  superseded  by  a  Protestant  ap- 
pointed by  the  Parliament.  He  then  retired  to  Virginia.  In  1646,  after  an 
absence  of  almost  two  years,  he  returned,  with  a  military  force,  and  recovered 
possession  of  the  province.  In  April,  1647,  he  issued  a  general  pardon,  pro- 
ceeded to  St.  Mary's  to  firmly  reestablish  good  government  there,  and  sat  down 
in  the -midst  of  an  affectionate  and  loyal  people,  to  enjoy  coveted  repose.  A 
longer  and  more  profound  rest  was  near,  for,  on  the  9th  of  June  following,  he 
died,  at  the  age  of  about  forty-one  years. 


NOAH    WEBSTER. 

"  TTE  taught  millions  to  read,  but  not  one  to  sin,"  was  the  glorious  and  com- 
XI  prehensive  eulogy  awarded  to  the  memory  of  Noah  Webster,  the  great 
bxicographer.  He  was  maternally  descended  from  William  Bradford,  the  second 
governor  of  the  Plymouth  colony,  and  paternally  from  John  Webster,  who  was 
governor  of  Connecticut,  in  1656.  He  was  born  in  West  Hartford,  Connecticut, 
on  the  16th  of  October,  1758,  at  the  very  time  when  Washington  was  leading 
his  brave  Virginians  to  the  capture  of  Fort  du  Quesne.  He  acquired  his  early 
education  at  a  district  school,  and  at  the  age  of  sixteen  years  entered  the  fresh- 
man class  in  Yale  College.  The  murmurs  of  the  storm  of  the  Revolution  were 
then  becoming  louder  and  louder,  and,  during  the  four  years  of  his  collegiate 
course,  his  studies  were  frequently  interrupted  by  the  disturbances  of  current 
events.  In  the  Autumn  of  1777,  he  joined  the  army  of  volunteers  that  flocked 
from  New  England  to  the  camp  of  Gates,  and  he  participated  in  the  capture  of 
Burgoyne  and  Ms  army.  He  then  resumed  his  studies,  and  was  graduated  in 
1778.  He  commenced  life  as  teacher  of  a  district  school  in  Hartford,  with  one 
dollar  in  his  pocket,  but  a  noble  capital  of  industry,  a  good  education,  and  an 
indomitable  will.  He  studied  law  during  leisure  hours,  and  was  admitted  to 
practice,  in  1781.  Finding  little  to  do  in  his  profession,  he  went  to  Goshen,  in 
New  York,  and  there  opened  a  high  school,  which  he  called  The  Farmer's  Hall 
Academy. 

While  studying  law,  Mr.  Webster  perceived  the  many  defects  in  the  English 
language,  and  in  resolving  to  improve  it,  he  formed  the  great  purpose  of  his  life, 
the  compilation  of  a  Dictionary.  He  first  prepared  an  elementary  work,  which 
he  submitted  to  several  members  of  the  Congress,  in  1783,  and  then  published 
it,  at  Hartford.  It  was  soon  followed  by  two  others,  and  the  whole  comprised  a 
spelling-book,  an  English  grammar,  and  a  reader.  At  least  twenty  millions  of 
Webster's  Spelling-book  have  already  [1854]  been  sold  in  the  United  States,  and 
the  sale  is  still  great.  After  the  Revolution,  Mr.  Webster  wrote  essays  on  several 
national  subjects,  and  he  cooperated  with  Dr.  Ramsay  in  procuring  a  copyright 
law  for  the  protection  of  American  authors.  He  ably  supported  the  Federal 
Constitution,  with  his  pen ;  and  he  established  a  daily  newspaper  in  the  city  of 
New  York,  devoted  to  the  administration  of  President  Washington.  After  en- 
gaging in  other  newspaper  enterprises  in  that  city,  he  removed  to  New  Haven, 
in  1798,  and  there  commenced  the  preparation  of  his  first  Dictionary.  It  was 
published  in  1806,  and  in  the  Preface,  he  publicly  announced  that  he  had  now 


NOAH  WEBSTEE. 


225 


entered  upon  the  great  work  of  his  life.  That  was  at  a  time  when  a  growing 
family  and  slender  pecuniary  means  appeared  great  obstacles ;  but  he  possessed 
an  iron  will,  and  his  spirit  was  undaunted.  He  toiled  on  in  the  midst  of  many 
discouragements;  and,  in  1812,  he  made  his  abode  at  Amherst,  Massachusetts, 
where  his  family  expenses  were  less.  He  returned  to  New  Haven,  in  1822,  and 
the  Faculty  of  Yale  College  then  conferred  upon  him  the  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Civil  Law.  He  was  yet  engaged  in  his  great  labor,  and,  in  pursuit  of  his  object, 
he  went  to  Europe  in  1824,  and  spent  a  year  in  the  collection  of  materials.  His 
mighty  task  was  completed  in  1827;  and,  in  1828,  his  American  Dictionary,  the 
greatest  work  of  its  kind  ever  undertaken,  was  published.  It  was  soon  after- 
ward republished  in  England,  and  at  once  took  an  exalted  position  in  the  world 
of  letters,  and  gave  its  author  great  renown.  An  enlarged  edition,  carefully 
r  j vised  by  the  author,  was  published  in  1841 ;  and  so  he  left  it,  a  precious  legacy 
to  his  country  and  mankind.  During  the  long  years  in  which  Dr.  "Webster  was 
engaged  on  his  Dictionary  he  was  no  recluse,  but  was  a  practicing  lawyer,  an 
agriculturist,  a  legislator,  and  an  academician.  His  old  age,  after  a  life  of  great 
activity,  was  serene,  for  the  pure  light  of  Christianity  rested  in  beauty  upon  the 
good  man's  path.  When  his  physician  told  him  he  must  die,  he  replied,  "I  am 
ready;"  and  on  the  28th  of  May,  1843,  he  went  quietly  to  his  rest,  in  the  eighty- 
fifth  year  of  his  age.  His  Dictionary  is  rapidly  approaching  the  position  of 
highest  authority,  especially  among  men  of  purest  taste  and  most  comprehensive 
knowledge. 

10* 


226  ISRAEL   PUTNAM. 


ISRAEL    PUTNAM. 

FULL  of  romance  and  stirring  interest  was  the  career  of  General  Putnam,  the 
hero  of  two  wars,  of  whom  Dr.  Ladd  said,  "  He  seems  to  have  been  almost 
obscured  amidst  the  glare  of  succeeding  worthies ;  but  his  early  and  gallant 
services  entitle  him  to  everlasting  remembrance."    And  the  same  pen  wrote — 

"  Hail,  Putnam  !  bail,  them  venerable  name, 
Though  dark  oblivion  threats  thy  mighty  fame, 
It  threats  in  vain — for  long  shalt  thou  be  known, 
Who  first  in  virtue  and  in  battle  shone." 

Israel  Putnam  was  born  at  Salem,  Massachusetts,  on  the  7th  of  January,  1718. 
He  was  descended  from  one  of  the  first  settlers  of  that  ancient  New  England 
town.  His  education  was  neglected,  and  he  grew  to  manhood  with  a  vigorous 
but  uncultivated  mind.  He  delighted  in  athletic  exercises,  and  generally  bore 
the  palm  among  his  fellows.  At  the  age  of  twenty-one  years  he  commenced  the 
life  of  a  farmer,  in  Pomfret,  Connecticut,1  where  he  "pursued  the  even  tenor  of 
his  way"  until  1755,  when  he  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  a  company  of 
Connecticut  troops,  destined  for  the  war  with  the  French  and  Indians  on  the 
northern  frontier.  He  performed  essential  service  under  General  Johnson  at 
Lake  George  and  vicinity  during  that  campaign;  and  the  following  year  he, had 
command  of  a  corps  of  Rangers,  and  bore  the  commission  of  a  captain  in  the 
provincial  army.  Ho  had  many  stirring  adventures  in  the  neighborhood  of  Lake 
Champlain.  In  August,  1758  (then  bearing  a  major's  commission),  he  was  near 
the  present  "Whitehall,  at  the  head  of  the  lake,  watching  the  movements  of  the 
enemy,  and  had  a  severe  encounter  with  the  French  and  Indians,  in  the  forest. 
Putnam  was  finally  made  prisoner,  and  the  savages  tied  him  to  a  tree,  and  pre- 
pared to  roast  him  alive.  A  shower  of  rain  and  the  interposition  of  a  French 
officer,  saved  his  life,  and  he  was  taken  to  the  head-quarters  of  the  enemy  at 
Ticonderoga.  From  thence  he  was  sent,  a  prisoner,  to  Montreal,  in  Canada, 
where,  through  the  kindness  of  Colonel  Peter  Schuyler,  of  Albany  (who  was  also 
a  prisoner),  he  was  humanely  treated.  The  following  Spring  he  was  exchanged, 
and  returned  home.  He  joined  the  army  again,  soon  afterward,  and  was  pro- 
moted to  lieutenant-colonel.  He  was  a  bold  and  efficient  leader  during  the 
remainder  of  the  war,  and  then  he  returned  to  his  plow  and  the  repose  and  ob- 
scurity of  domestic  life  in  rural  seclusion. 

Colonel  Putnam  was  an  active  friend  of  the  people  when  disputes  with  govern- 
ment commenced  ten  years  before  war  was  kindled ;  and  when  the  intelligence 
of  bloodshed  at  Lexington  reached  him,  while  plowing  in  the  field,  he  had  no 
political  scruples  to  settle,  but,  unyoking  his  oxen,  he  started,  with  his  gun  and 
rusty  sword,  for  Boston.  He  soon  returned  to  Connecticut,  raised  a  regiment, 
and  hastened  back  to  Cambridge,  then  the  head-quarters  of  a  motley  host  that 
had'  hurried  thither  from  the  hills  and  valleys  of  New  England.  When,  six 
weeks  afterward,  Washington  was  appointed  commander-in-chief  of  the  Con- 
tinental army,  Putnam  was  chosen  to  be  one  of  four  major-generals  created  on 
that  occasion.  He  performed  bravely  on  Bunker's  Hill  before  his  commission 
reached  him,  and  from  that  time,  throughout  the  whole  struggle  until  the  close 
of  17 79,  General  Putnam  was  a  faithful  and  greatly-esteemed  leader.  His  ser- 

1.  During  one  night,  a  wolf  that  had  been  depredating  in  the  neighborhood  for  some  time,  killed  seventy 
of  his  fine  sheep  and  goats.  It  was  ascertained  to  be  a  she-wolf,  and  Putnam  and  his  neighbors  turned 
out  to  hunt  and  destroy  her.  She  was  driven  into  a  rocky  cave,  and  at  ten  o'clock  at  night,  Putnam, 
with  a  rope  fastened  to  his  leg,  descended  into  the  den  with  a  gun  and  torch,  and  sought  out  and  boldly  shot 
the  depredator.  Then  giving  a  concerted  signal,  he  was  drawn  up  by  the  rope.  He  again  descended, 
seized  the  dead  wolf  by  the  ears,  and  was  again  drawn  up  amid  the  cheers  of  his  companions,  who  were 
waiting  in  exultation,  in  the  moonlight  above. 


MAEY   PHILIPSE.  227 


vices  were  too  numerous  to  be  detailed  here — they  are  all  recorded  in  our  coun- 
try's annals,  and  remembered  by  every  student  of  our  history.  At  West  Point, 
on  the  Hudson,  his  military  career  was  concluded.  Late  in  1779,  he  set  out  to 
visit  his  family  in  Connecticut,  and  on  the  way  he  suffered  a  partial  paralysis  of 
his  system,  which  impaired  both  his  mind  and  body.  At  his  home  in  Brooklyn, 
Connecticut,  he  remained  an  invalid  the  remainder  of  his  days.  With  Christian 
resignation,1  and  the  fortitude  of  a  courageous  man,  he  bore  his  afflictions  for 
more  than  ton  years,  and  then,  at  the  close  of  the  beautiful  budding  month  of 
May  (29th),  1700,  the  veteran  hero  died,  at  the  age  of  seventy-two  years.  His 
Memoir,  prepared  by  Colonel  David  Humphreys,  from  narratives  uttered  by  the 
patriot's  own  lips,  was  first  published,  by  order  of  the  State  Society  of  the  Cin- 
cinnati of  Connecticut,  in  1788,  and  afterward  published  in  Humphrey's  collected 
writings,  in  1790.  A  neat  monument,  bearing  an  epitaph,  is  over  his  grave  in 
Brooklyn,  Massachusetts. 


MARY    PHILIPSE. 

Lccomplished  American  girl  of  twe 
won  the  first  love  of  Washington  just  when  his  greatness  was  dawning,  is 


beautiful  and  accomplished  American  girl  of  twenty-six  Summers,  who 
Was 


worthy  of  the  historic  embalmer's  care,  for  she  forms  a  part  of  the  story  of  the 
great  central  figure  in  the  group  of  American  worthies  of  the  past  generations. 
Mary  Philipse  was  the  daughter  of  the  Honorable  Frederick  Philipse,  Speaker 
of  the  New  York  Colonial  Assembly,  and  one  of  the  early  great  landholders  on 
the  Hudson  river,  in  Westchester  county.  She  was  born  at  the  more  modern 
manor-house  of  the  family,  in  the  present  village  of  Yonkers,2  on  the  3d  of  July, 
1730.  Of  her  early  life  we  have  no  record  except  the  testimony  which  her  accom- 
plishments bore  concerning  her  careful  education.  Her  sister  was  the  wife  of  Co- 
lonel Beverly  Eobinson,  of  New  York,  and  there  Miss  Philipse  was  residing  when 
she  made  the  acquaintance  of  Washington,  above  alluded  to.  It  was  in  the  mem- 
orable year,  1756,  when  the  whole  country  was  excited  by  the  current  events  of 
the  French  and  Indian  war.  Washington  was  a  Virginia  colonel,  twenty-four 
years  of  age,  and  had  won  his  first  bright  laurels  at  the  Great  Meadows  and  the 
field  of  Monongahela.  On  account  of  difficulties  concerning  rank,  he  visited  the 
commander-in-chicf,  Governor  Shirley,  at  Boston,  and  it  was  while  on  his  way 
thither,  on  horseback,  that  he  stopped  at  the  house  of  Colonel  Robinson,  in  New 
York.  There  he  saw  the  beautiful  Mary  Philipse,  and  his  young  heart  was 
touched  by  her  charms.  He  left  her  with  reluctance  and  went  on  to  Boston. 
On  his  return,  he  was  again  the  willing  guest  of  Colonel  Eobinson,  and  he  lin- 
gered there,  in  the  society  of  Mary,  as  long  as  duty  would  allow.  It  is  believed 
that  he  offered  her  his  hand,  but  a  rival  bore  off  the  prize.  That  rival  was 
Colonel  Eoger  Morris,  Washington's  companion-in-arms  on  the  bloody  field  of 
Monongahela,  and  one  of  Braddock's  aids,  on  that  occasion.  Eoger  and  Mary 
were  married,  in  1758,  and  lived  in  great  happiness  until  the  storm  of  the  Eevo- 
lution  desolated  their  home.  Colonel  Morris  then  espoused  the  cause  of  the 
king;  and  when  the  American  army,  under  Washington,  was  encamped  on 


1.  General  Putnam  was  a  professing'  Christian  and  member  of  the  Congregational  Church  at  Brooklyn. 
It  is  said  that  after  the  war  he  arose  in  the  congregation  find  apologized  for  swearing  pretty  severely  on 
Bunker's  Hill,  when  he  could  not  in-luce  the  timid  militia  to  follow  him  to  reinforce  Prescott  in  the 
assailed  redoubt  on  Breed's  Hill.     "  It  was  almost  enough  to  make  an  angel  swear,"  he  said,  "to  see 
the  cowards  refuse  to  secure  a  victory  so  nearly  won."  * 

2.  That  old  manor-house,  row  over  a  century  old,  is  yet  standing,  and  is  in  the  present  [1855]  pos- 
session of  the  Honorable  W.  W.  Woodworth,  who  resides  there,  and  has  the  good  taste  to  preserve  it  in 
its  ancient  condition. 


228  ROBERT   TREAT   PAINE. 

Harlem  Heights,  in  the  Autumn  of  1776,  his  beautiful  mansion,  overlooking  the 
Harlem  river,  became  the  head-quarters  of  the  commander-in-chief.  Both  Colonel 
Morris  and  his  wife  were  included  in  the  act  of  attainder,  passed  by  the  New 
York  legislature,  in  1778.  It  is  believed  that  she,  and  her  sister  Mrs.  Inglis, 
were  the  only  females  who  were  attainted  of  treason  during  the  struggle.  A 
large  portion  of  their  real  property  was  restored  to  their  children,  of  whom  John 
Jacob  Astor  purchased  it,  in  1809,  for  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  after- 
ward sold  it  to  the  State  of  New  York  for  half  a  million.1  Colonel  Morris  died 
in  England,  in  1794,  at  the  age  of  sixty-seven  years,  and  his  wife  lived  a  widow 
thirty-one  years  afterward.  She  died,  in  1825,  at  the  age  of  ninety-six,  and 
was  buried  by  the  side  of  her  husband,  near  Saviour-gate  church,  York,  where 
their  son,  Henry  Gage  Morris,  of  the  royal  army,  erected  a  monument  to  their 
memory. 


ROBERT    TREAT    PAINE. 

•f 

"  Ne'er  was  a  nobler  spirit  born, 

A  loftier  soul,  a  gentler  heart ; 

Above  the  world's  ignoble  scorn, 

Above  the  reach  of  venal  art." 

THUS  sung  a  genial  friend,  at  the  tomb  of  Robert  Treat  Paine,  a  New  England 
bard.  He  was  born  at  Taunton,  Massachusetts,  on  the  9th  of  December, 
1773,  and  was  the  second  son  of  Robert  Treat  Paine,  one  of  the  signers  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  He  was  named  Thomas,2  but  on  the  death  of  his 
eldest  and  unmarried  brother,  Robert  Treat,  in  1798,  he  assumed  his  name,  and 
had  his  choice  legally  confirmed  by  an  act  of  the  legislature,  in  1801.  Paino 
was  educated  at  Harvard,  where  his  poetic  genius  was  early  developed.3  Ho 
was  intended  for  the  profession  of  the  law,  but  soon  after  leaving  college  he 
became  a  merchant's  clerk.  He  was  quite  irregular  in  his  habits,  and  became 
greatly  enamored  of  the  theatre.  He  obtained  a  medal  for  a  prologue,  spoken 
at  the  opening  of  a  new  theatre  in  Boston,  in  1793  ;4  and  the  following  year  he 
assumed  the  editorial  control  of  a  newspaper  called  the  Federal  Orerry.  It  was 
an  unsuccessful  enterprise,  for  the  editor  was  idle,  and  it  expired  from  want  of 
proper  food,  in  1796.  Paino  had  married  the  beautiful  daughter  of  an  actor,  the 
year  before,  which  offended  his  father,  and  an  alienation  ensued.  The  young 
lady  proved  an  excellent  wife,  and  was  an  angel  at  his  side  when  intemperance 
clouded  his  mind  and  beggared  his  family. 

In  1795,  Mr.  Paine  delivered  a  poem  at  Cambridge,  entitled  Invention  of  Letters, 
for  which  he  received  from  the  booksellers,  fifteen  hundred  dollars.  Two  years 
afterward,  his  Ruling  Passion  brought  him  twelve  hundred  dollars;  and  his 
Adams  and  Liberty,  written  in  1798,  at  the  request  of  the  Massachusetts  Charita- 
ble Fire  Society,  yielded  him  seven  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  or  more  than 
eleven  dollars  a  line.5  Mr.  Paine  was  appointed  master  of  ceremonies  at  the 

1.  This  purchase  was  necessary  to  quiet  the  occupants  of  the  land  in  their  possession,  for  they  had 
purchased  from  the  commissioners  under  the  confiscation  act. 

2.  I  have  given  his  signature,  written  before  the  death  of  his  brother. 

3.  A  class-mate  abused  him,  in  rhyme,  upon  the  college  wall.    Young  Paine  had  never  written  a  line 
of  poetry,  but  instantly  resolved  to  answer  his  antagonist  in  meter,  and  did  so.    To  that  circumstance 
he  attributed  his  attention  to  rhyme.    When  he  was  graduated,  in  1792,  he  delivered  a  poem. 

4.  The  Federal  Street  Theatre,  yet  [1856]  devoted  to  the  drama.     It  was  destroyed  by  fire,  in  1798,  and 
rebuilt  on  a  larger  scale,  in  the  Autumn  of  that  year. 

5.  Never  was  a  political  song  more  popular,  or  more  widely  snng,  than  this.     Paine  showed  the  verses 
*o  Mr.  Russell,  editor  of  the  Boston  Centinel.    It  was  in  the  midst  of  company  at  Mr.  Russell's  house. 
Paine  was  about  to  take  a  glass  of  wine,  when  his  host  said,  ' '  You  have  said  nothing  about  Washington  ; 


ROBERT  TREAT   PAINF. 


229 


-V&-          -—3 


theatre,  with  a  salary,  and  that  connection  threatened  his  health  and  reputation 
with  shipwreck.  A  happy  change  soon  occurred.  He  abandoned  dissipation, 
and,  on  the  solicitation  of  friends,  he  left  the  theatre,  moved,  with  his  family,  to 
Newburyport,  entered  the  law  office  of  Judge  Parsons,  became  a  practitioner, 
enjoyed  reconciliation  with  his  father,  and  gave  his  friends  great  hopes.  In 
1803,  when  fortune  and  bright  character  were  within  his  grasp,  he  was  again 
allured  to  the  theatre,  its  associations  and  its  habits,  and  he  fell  to  rise  no  more. 
He  neglected  business,  became  intemperate,  and  died  in  wretchedness,  on  the 
14th  of  November,  1811,  when  in  the  thirty-eighth  year  of  his  age.  It  was  a 
sad  evening  of  life,  in  contrast  with  the  promises, of  the  brilliant  morning.  His 

you  cannot  drink  until  you  have  added  a  verse  in  his  honor."  The  poet  paced  the  room  a  few  moments, 
and  then,  calling  for  pea  and  ink,  wrote  with  great  rapidity  : 

"  Should  the  tempest  of  war  overshadow  our  land, 
Its  bolts  would  ne'er  rend  Freedom's  temple  asunder ; 
For,  unmoved,  at  its  portal  would  Washington  stand, 

And  repulse,  with  his  breast,  the  assaults  of  the  thunde.  t 

His  sword  from  the  sleep 

Of  its  scabbard  would  leap, 
And  conduct,  with  its  point,  every  flash  to  the  deep  !" 


230  THOMAS  PLNCKNEY. 

career  is  a  warning  to  the  gifted  to  avoid  the  perils  of  inordinate  indulgence  of 
passions  and  pleasures,  for  no  intellect  is  so  strong  that  it  may  not  be  bowed  in 
degradation. 


w 


THOMAS    PINCKNEY. 

E  have  already  considered  the  career  of  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney,  one 
of  the  noblest  of  South  Carolina's  many  noble  sons.  He  had  an  accom- 
plished brother,  four  years  his  junior,  who  bore  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  great 
struggle  for  independence,  and  honored  the  diplomacy  of  his  country.  Thomas 
Pinckney  was  born  at  Charleston,  on  the  23d  of  October,  3750,  and  at  the  age 
of  three  years  was  taken  to  England,  with  his  brother  Charles,  to  be  educated. 
There  he  grew  to  manhood,  chose  his  life-pursuit,  acquired  the  proper  prepar- 
atory knowledge,  and,  after  an  absence  of  twenty  years,  returned  to  his  native 
land.  In  early  boyhood  he  felt  a  martial  spirit  stirring  within  him.  It  grew 
with  his  growth,  and  his  studies  were  almost  exclusively  military,  on  his  arrival 
home.  He  became  a  thorough  tactician  in  theory,  and,  on  the  organization  of 
a  military  force  in  his  native  city,  he  was  intrusted  with  the  command  of  a  com- 
pany. He  was  a  rigid  disciplinarian,  yet  his  men  all  loved  him.  He  soon  rose 
to  the  rank  of  major,  and  was  very  active  in  recruiting  and  disciplining  the  militia, 
until  the  arrival  of  General  Lincoln,  in  1779,  as  commander-in-chief  of  the 
Southern  army.  Lincoln  appointed  Major  Pinckney  one  of  his  aids,  and  in  that 
capacity  he  was  engaged  in  the  siege  of  Savannah,  in  the  Autumn  of  that  year. 
Several  months  previously,  he  had  gained  great  applause  for  his  gallantry  in  the 
battle  at  Stono  Ferry,  just  below  Charleston.  He  was  not  among  the  captives 
at  Charleston,  in  May,  1780;  and  when  Gates  took  command  of  the  Southern 
army,  Pinckney  was  appointed  his  aid.  He  fought  gallantly  at  the  battle  near 
Camden,  in  August,  and  there  had  his  leg  badly  shattered  by  a  musket  ball. 
He  could  not  retreat,  and  was  made  a  prisoner  and  sent  to  New  York.  His 
wound  disabled  him  during  the  rest  of  the  war,  and  he  remained  in  private  lifb 
until  1787,  when  he  was  elected  to  succeed  General  Moultrie  as  governor  of 
South  Carolina.  He  displayed  statesmanship  of  the  highest  order;  and,  in  1792, 
President  Washington  appointed  him  minister  plenipotentiary  to  the  British 
court.  He  managed  the  complicated  and  important  affairs  of  his  mission  with 
great  skill.  Toward  the  close  of  1794,  Mr.  Pinckney  was  appointed  minister  to 
Spain,  and  took  up  his  residence  at  Madrid  the  following  year.  He  soon  after- 
ward concluded  a  treaty  with  the  Spanish  court,  by  which  the  free  navigation 
of  the  Mississippi  was  secured  to  the  people  of  the  United  States.  He  returned 
home  the  following  year,  to  attend  to  his  domestic  affairs,  and  remained  in  private 
life  until  the  proclamation  of  war  with  Great  Britain,  in  1812,  called  many  a 
veteran  hero  to  the  field.  President  Madison  appointed  General  Pinckney  to 
the  command  of  the  Southern  Department,  and  it  was  under  his  directions  that 
General  Jackson  successfully  prosecuted  the  war  with  the  Indians.  His  fore- 
cast and  generosity  opened  to  Jackson  that  military  career  which  he  pursued 
so  gloriously.  General  Pinckney  resigned  his  commission  on  the  return  of 
peace,  and  he  resumed  his  favorite  employment — scientific  agriculture.  He 
lived  more  than  thirteen  years  after  the  peace  of  1815.  After  a  long  illness,  he 
died,  on  the  2d  of  November,  1828,  when  a  little  more  than  seventy-eight  years 
of  age.  General  Pinckney  married  a  daughter  of  Rebecca  Motte,  the  patriotic 
widow  of  the  Congaree,  whose  portrait  and  memoir  may  be  found  in  another 
part  of  this  work. 


CORNPLANTER.  231 


CORNPLANTER. 

/~1  ENTEN ARY  honors  crowned  Ga-nio-di-eugh,  or  the  Cornplanter,  a  chief  of 
\J  the  Seneca  nation,  who,  for  seventy-five  years,  held  a  conspicuous  place  in 
the  history  of  his  race,  as  one  of  the  bravest  and  most  eloquent  of  its  warriors. 
He  is  supposed  to  have  been  born  about  the  year  1735 ;  and  he  first  appears  on 
the  page  of  history  as  the  leader  of  a  war  party  of  the  Senecas  when  that  nation 
was  in  alliance  with  the  French  against  the  English.  He  was  a  participator  in 
the  bloody  battle  in  which  General  Braddock  was  killed.  He  was  a  native  of 
Conewaugus,  in  the  Genesee  Valley,  and  a  half-breed,  his  father  having  been  a 
white  man  from  the  Mohawk  region.1  Cornplanter  was  a  war-chief  of  his  tribe 
when  the  Revolution  began.  Being  in  the  full  vigor  of  manhood,  active  and 
brave,  he  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the  dusky  leaders  who  spread 
destruction  over  the  white  frontier  settlements  in  New  York,  and  in  the  Valley 
of  Wyoming.  In  the  bloody  forays  at  Cherry  Valley  and  "Wyoming,  Cornplanter 
was  conspicuous ;  and  during  the  invasion  of  the  Seneca  country,  by  Sullivan,  in 
1779,  and  the  fearful  vengeance  therefor  inflicted  by  the  Indians  afterward, 
Cornplanter  was  a  chief  leader  of  his  people.2  He  was  the  most  inveterate  and 
active  foe  of  the  Americans  during  the  whole  war,  but  after  the  treaty  of  peace 
he  became  the  fast  friend  of  the  United  States.  He  was  chiefly  instrumental  in 
the  pacification  treaty  at  Fort  Stanwix,  in  1784,  when  Red  Jacket  opposed  him 
with  his  wonderful  eloquence.  At  the  close  of  the  treaty  the  brave  chief  said 
significantly,  "  I  thank  the  Great  Spirit  for  this  opportunity  of  smoking  the  pipe 
of  friendship  and  love.  May  we  plant  our  own  vines,  be  the  fathers  of  our 
children,  and  maintain  them."  He  was  also  conspicuous  in  treaties  in  Ohio, 
which  gave  offence  to  his  nation.  Hoping  to  exalt  himself  upon  the  ruins  of 
Cornplanter,  Red  Jacket  fostered  the  discontent,  and  the  life  of  the  former  was 
placed  in  jeopardy.  He  repaired  to  Philadelphia  and  applied  to  President 
Washington  for  counsel  and  relief.  Cornplanter  laid  a  most  touching  appeal  for 
himself  and  his  nation,  before  the  President.  The  reply  was  kind,  but  Wash- 
ington could  not  go  behind  treaties.  Relief,  however,  was  promised,  and  Corn- 
planter  went  back,  a  happier  man. 

During  the  troubles  with  the  Indians  in  the  north-west,  until  Wayne's  victory 
in  1794,  Cornplanter  remained  neutral;  and  he  was  at  the  council  held  in  the 
Seneca  country  to  treat  with  Thomas  Morris  respecting  portions  of  the  territory 
afterward  known  as  the  Holland  Land  Purchase.  During  the  years  of  repose 
which  followed,  Cornplanter  was  assiduous  in  endeavors  to  improve  the  moral 
character  of  his  nation.  He  made  great  efforts  to  stay  the  progress  of  intem- 
perance ;  and  he  was  the  first  and  most  eloquent  of  temperance  lecturers  in 
America.3  He  readily  assumed  many  of  the  habits  and  pursuits  of  the  white 
men ;  and  having  failed  to  become  chief  sachem  of  his  nation,  through  the  in- 

1.  la  his  own  language,  he  said,  "  When  I  was  a  child  I  played  with  the  butterfly,  the  grasshopper, 

and  the  frog The  Indian,  boys  took  notice  of  my  skin  being  different  in  color  from  theirs, 

and  spoke  about  it.     I  inquired  of  my  mother  the  cause,  and  she  told  me  that  my  father  lived  in  Albany. 
I  still  ate  my  victuals  out  of  a  bark  dish.     I  grew  up  to  be  a  young  man,  and  married  me  a  wife,  and  I 
had  no  kettle  or  gun.     I  then  knew  where  my  father  lived,  and  went  to  see  him,  and  found  he  was  a 
white  man  and  spoke  the  English  language.     He  gave  me  victuals  while  I  was  at  his  house,  but  when 
I  started  to  return  home,  he  gave  me  no  provision  to  eat  on  the  way.    He  gave  me  neither  kettle  nor 
gun." 

2.  Cornplanter  made  his  father  a,  prisoner,  at  Fort  Plain,  but  shielded  him  from  all  harm,  and  sent  him 
to  a  place  of  safety. 

3.  While  speaking  upon  this  subject,  in  1822,  Cornplanter  said,  "The  Great  Spirit  first  made  the 
world,  next  the  flying  animals,  and  found  all  things  good  and  prosperous.    He  is  immortal  and  ever- 
lasting.    After  finishing  the  flying  animals,  he  came  down  to  earth,  and  there   stood.     Then  he  made 
different  kinds  of  trees,  and  woods  of  all  sorts,  and  people  of  every  kind.    He  made  the  Spring  and  other 
seasons,  and  the  weather  suitable  for  planting.     These  he  did  mnke.    But  stills  to  make  whiskey  to  give 

to  the  Indians  he  DID  NOT  make The  (Jroat  Spirit  has  ordered  me  to  stop  drinking,  and.  He 

wishes  mo  to  inform  tho  people  that  they  bhouM  quit  drinking  intoxicating  drinks." 


232  SAMUEL   L.  MITCHILL. 

trigues  of  Red  Jacket,  he  retired  to  a  large  tract  of  land  on  the  AUeghany  river, 
which  the  legislature  had  presented  to  him,  and  there  cultivated  a  farm  in  ob- 
scurity during  the  remainder  of  his  long  life.  "When  Rev.  Timothy  Alden  visited 
him,  in  1816,  he  was  the  owner  of  sixten  hundred  acres  of  fine  bottom  land. 
He  was  a  professing  Christian,1  though  very  superstitious.  There  the  old  chief 
lived  on  in  quiet  obscurity,  until  he  had  passed  his  hundredth  year.  He  died  at 
his  residence  on  the  7th  of  March,  1836,  with  a  confused  notion  of  being  happy 
in  the  Christian's  heaven,  or  in  the  elysian  fields,  pictures  of  which  came  down 
upon  the  tide  of  memory  from  his  early  youth. 


SAMUEL    L.    MITCHILL. 

"  A  MONG-  those,"  says  Knapp,  "  who  did  not  gain  all  the  laurels  at  home,  that 
-ti.  he  should  have  had,  while  he  was  honored  by  almost  every  intelligent 
court,  and  every  learned  society  abroad,  was  Doctor  Mitchill."  He  was  a  native 
of  North  Hempstead,  Queen's  county,  Long  Island,  where  he  was  born  of 
Quaker  parents,  on  the  20th  of  August,  1704.  He  was  educated  by  private 
tutors,  supplied  chiefly  by  his  maternal  uncle,  Dr.  Samuel  Latham,  whose  name 
he  bore.  That  gentleman  saw  and  admired  the  budding  of  his  genius.  Young 
Mitchill  soon  became  an  excellent  classical  scholar.  Nature  wooed  him ;  and  so 
enamored  was  he  of  her  beauties  and  hidden  wealth,  that  he  became  her  devotee 
while  a  lad,  and  was  a  philosopher  when  only  twenty  years  of  age. 

Young  Mitchill  chose  the  medical  profession  as  a  life-pursuit,  and  commenced 
study  with  his  uncle.  In  1780,  he  was  placed  under  the  instructions  of  Dr. 
Samuel  Bard,  and  after  a  little  more  than  three  years,  he  went  to  Edinburgh,  in 
Scotland,  then  the  seat  of  science,  in  Great  Britain.  There  he  had  Thomas 
Addis  Emmet  and  Sir  James  M 'In  tosh  for  his  class-mates  and  friends;  and  when 
he  left  the  institution,  he  bore  its  highest  honors.  The  fame  of  his  acquirements 
preceded  him,  and  when  he  returned  home  he  was  received  into  the  first  intel- 
lectual circles  in  New  York.  The  Faculty  of  Columbia  College  gave  him  the 
degree  of  Master  of  Arts.  For  awhile  he  turned  his  attention  to  constitutional 
law,  with  the  intention  of  engaging  in  legislative  duties.  In  1788,  he  was  one 
of  the  commissioners  who  treated  with  the  heads  of  the  Six  Nations,  at  Fort 
Stanwix  (now  Rome),  and  obtained  from  them  the  cession  of  Western  New 
York.  In  the  meanwhile  he  practiced  his  profession,  and  was  indefatigable  in 
his  study  of  the  natural  sciences.  In  1790,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  New 
York  Legislative  Assembly;  and,  in  1792,  he  was  chosen  Professor  of  Chem- 
istry, Natural  Sciences,  and  Agriculture,  in  Columbia  College.  He  was  then 
considered  the  best  naturalist  and  practical  chemist,  in  America.  In  1796,  he 
made  his  famous  report  of  a  mineralogical  survey  of  the  State  of  New  York ;  and 
the  following  year  he  commenced  the  publication  of  the  Medical  Repository,  of 
which  he  was  chief  editor  for  sixteen  years.  He  was  the  founder  (and  a  long 
time  president)  of  the  Lyceum  of  Natural  History,  of  New  York ;  and  he  took  a 
great  interest  in  the  New  York  Historical  Society,  and  kindred  institutions.  He 
was  a  special  and  efficient  friend  to  domestic  manufactures  and  agriculture,  and 
was  the  first,  in  this  country,  to  apply  the  science  of  chemistry  to  the  practical 
pursuit  of  the  latter  avocation.  As  a  legislator  he  was  wise,  full  of  forecast, 
and  possessed  great  boldness  and  perseverance.2  For  his  efforts  in  behalf  of 

1.  See  sketch  of  Samuel  Kirkland. 

2.  He  was  a  member  of  the  New  York  legislature,  in  1798,  when  Chancellor  Livinpston  applied  for 
the  exclusive  right  of  navigating  the  waters  of  the  Hudson  river  with  boats  propelled  "  by  fire  or 


SAMUEL   L.  MITCHILL. 


233 


steam  navigation  on  the  Hudson,  his  name  should  be  associated  with  that  of 
Fulton,  Barlow,  and  Livingston.1 

For  about  twenty  years,  Dr.  Mitchill  acted  as  one  of  the  physicians  of  the 
New  York  Hospital.  Notwithstanding  his  immense  labors  in  the  field  of  scien- 
tific research,  and  his  voluminous  publications  upon  almost  every  variety  of 
subjects,  he  found  time  to  mingle  in  political  strife,  and  share  in  the  labors  and 
honors  of  official  station.  He  represented  the  city  of  New  York,  in  Congress, 
six  consecutive  years,  and  was  afterward  United  States  Senator.  He  was  pos- 
sessed of  vast  and  varied  knowledge ;  and  yet,  because  he  sometimes  advanced 


steam."  With  his  usual  forecast,  Dr.  Mitchill  perceived  the  feasibility  of  the  project,  and  presented  a  bill 
accordingly.  Everybody  ridiculed  him.  The  elder  portion  of  the  legislature  considered  the  -whole  matter 
too  absurd  to  be  seriously  entertained,  while  the  younger  members,  when  they  desired  a  little  fun,  would 
call  up  Dr.  Mitchill's  "hot  water  bill,"  and  bandy  jokes  without  stint.  Yet  the  Doctor  persevered, 
procured  the  passage  of  his  bill,  and  had  the  pleasure  of  laughing  at  his  persecutors,  a  few  years  after- 
ward. 

1.  Since  preparing  the  sketches  of  these  three  men,  printed  on  preceding  pages,  I  have  been  furnished 
with  evidence  from  the  correspondence  of  Barlow  (now  in  possession  of  one  of  his  descendants,  who  is 
arranging  them  for  the  press),  that  Fulton  was  far  more  indebted  to  that  friend  for  pecuniary  aid  and 
general  encouragement,  than  to  any  one  else.  When  Livingston  first  met  Fulton,  in  France,  he  was 
dubious  concerning  the  feasibility  of  his  scheme,  while  Barlow  was  sanguine,  and  was  doing  all  in  his 
power  to  assist  Fulton.  When  experiments  had  furnished  actual  demonstration,  and  Livingston  could 
no  longer  doubt,  then  he  lent  his  wealth  and  influence  to  Fulton.  Barlow  was  Fulton's  benefactor  ; 
Livingston  was  his  business  partner  and  friend. 


234  ARTHUR   LEE. 


opinions  of  which  the  world  had  not  yet  dreamed,  he  was  sneered  at  by  the 
sciolist,  and  ridiculed  by  shallow  upstarts  in  science.  He  was  thoroughly  ap- 
preciated in  Europe,  where  almost  every  literary  and  scientific  institution  thought 
it  an  honor  to  enrol  his  name  upon  its  list  of  members.  Dr.  Mitchill  died  at  his 
residence,  in  New  York  City,  on  the  7th  of  September,  1831,  in  the  sixty-seventh 
year  of  his  age. 


ARTHUR    LEE. 

DURING-  the  early  years  of  the  War  for  Independence,  and  for  many  months 
before  the  flame  broke  forth  in  Massachusetts,  the  American  patriots  were 
much  indebted  to  secret  observers  of  political  men  and  things  in  Europe,  who 
kept  the  former  continually  and  accurately  informed  of  passing  events.  One  of 
the  most  efficient  of  these  observers  was  Arthur  Lee,  of  Virginia,  brother  of 
Richard  Henry  Lee,  author  of  the  resolution  proposing  independence  for  the 
United  States  of  America.  He  was  born  at  Stratford,  in  Westmoreland  county, 
Virginia,  on  the  20th  of  December,  1740.  He  was  educated  in  the  Edinburgh 
University,  where  he  studied  the  science  of  medicine,  for  some  time.  On  his 
return,  he  commenced  its  practice  at  Williamsburg,  then  the  capital,  and  centre 
of  fashion,  of  Virginia.  In  17G6,  while  the  Americans  were  yet  greatly  excited 
concerning  the  Stamp  Act,  he  went  to  London,  and  commenced  the  study  of  the 
law,  in  the  Temple.  There  he  formed  a  close  intimacy  with  Sir  William  Jones, 
(the  eminent  Oriental  scholar),  and  many  other  men  of  note.  During  all  the 
agitations  from  that  period  until  the  beginning  of  the  war,  Dr.  Lee  kept  the 
Americans  informed,  chiefly  through  his  brother,  Richard  Henry,  of  the  plans 
and  measures  of  the  ministry,  and  was  of  essential  service  to  the  cause  of  popular 
liberty  in  America.  He  wrote  much  for  the  press  in  favor  of  the  colonies ;  and, 
in  1775,  he  was  accredited  agent  of  Virginia,  in  England.  In  the  Summer  of 
that  year,  he  presented  the  second  petition  of  the  American  Congress  to  the 
king;  and,  in  the  Autumn  of  1776,  he  was  appointed  a  commissioner  of  the 
United  States  at  the  French  court,  as  colleague  of  Dr.  Franklin  and  Silas  Deane. 
He  held  that  position  until  1779,  when  Franklin  was  appointed  sole  minister. 
In  the  meanwhile,  Dr.  Lee  had  been  appointed  a  special  commissioner  to  Spain 
to  solicit  a  loan ;  and  in  the  same  capacity,  and  for  the  same  purpose,  he  visited 
the  capital  of  Prussia,  but  the  king,  unwilling  to  offend  Great  Britain,  would  not 
openly  receive  him.1  Dr.  Lee  returned  to  America,  in  1780,  when  Silas  Deane 
was  laboring  to  blacken  his  character.2  The  people  believed  in  their  hitherto 
faithful  friend,  and,  early  in  1781,  Dr.  Lee  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  House 
of  Burgesses,  of  Virginia.  That  body  sent  him  to  Congress,  where  he  held  a 
seat  until  1785.  In  1784,  he  was  appointed  one  of  the  commissioners  to  treat 
with  the  representatives  of  the  Six  Nations  of  Indians,  at  Fort  Schuyler  (now 
Rome),  and  soon  afterward  he  was  called  to  a  seat  at  the  Treasury  Board.  Early 
in  1790,  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
but  his  earthly  career  was  almost  closed.  He  purchased  a  farm  near  Urbana, 
on  the  Rappaiiannock,  and  there  he  died,  on  the  14th  of  December,  1792,  at  the 
age  of  almost  fifty -two  years. 

1.  Dr.  Lee  was  successful  in  his  mission  to  both  Spain  and  Prussia.     Although  the  King  of  Prussia 
would  not  receive  him  openly,  he  had  continual  correspondence  with  Ihc  court,  and  his  brother  William 
was  a  resident  agent  of  the  United  States  there.     While  in  Berlin,  his  papers  were  stolen,  and  he  charged 
the  British  minister  with  the  theft.     The  king  ordered  an  investigation,  and  1hey  were  soon  secretly  re- 
turned.   At  the  request  of  the  Prussian  monarch,  the  Bri'ish  minister  was  recalled.    Dr.  Lee  received  warm 
assurances  of  friendship  from  the  king,  and  obtained  favors  for  the  United  States. 

2.  See  sketch  of  Deane. 


CHRISTOPHER   COLLES.  235 


CHRISTOPHER    COLLES. 

IN  that  superb  Offering  of  Intellect  to  Worth  and  Genius,  the  Knickerbocker 
Galkry,1  published  at  the  close  of  1854,  Dr.  John  "W.  Francis  has  given  an 
exceedingly  interesting  sketch  of  Christopher  Colles,  a  name  but  little  known  to 
this  generation,  while  the  influence  of  his  genius  is  everywhere  felt  in  the  great 
pulsating  arteries  of  our  national  enterprise,  for  it  was  in  the  highest  degree 
suggestive.  This  kindly  embalming  by  an  appreciating  hand,  has  saved  a  name 
deserving  of  honor  from  that  forgetfulness  which  the  world  too  often  indulges 
toward  genius  in  linsey-woolsey. 

Mr.  Colles  was  born  in  Ireland  about  the  year  1757.  Under  the  care  and 
instructions  of  Richard  Pococke,  the  celebrated  Oriental  traveller,  he  acquired 
much  scientific  knowledge  and  considerable  expertness  in  the  use  of  different 
languages.  His  patron  died  in  1765,  and  Colles  came  to  America  soon  after- 
ward. He  first  appeared  in  public  here  as  a  lecturer  on  canal  navigation,  at 
about  the  year  1772 ;  and  he  is  unquestionably  the  first  man  who  suggested,  and 
called  public  attention  to  the  importance  of  a  navigable  water-communication 
between  the  Hudson  river  and  the  Lakes.  He  presented  a  memorial  on  the 
subject  to  the  New  York  State  legislature,  in  the  Autumn  of  1784,  and  in  April 
following,  a  favorable  report  was  made.  Colles  actually  made  a  survey  of  the 
Mohawk,  and  the  country  to  "Wood  creek,  by  which  a  water-communication  with 
Oneida  and  Ontario  lakes  might  be  effected.  The  results  of  that  tour  were  pub- 
lished in  a  pamphlet,  in  1785.  More  than  ten  years  before,  Colles  had  matured 
a  plan  for  supplying  the  city  of  New  York  with  wholesome  water,  and  steps 
were  taken  for  the  purpose,  when  the  Revolution  interfered.  Year  after  year 
he  was  engaged  in  his  favorite  projects.  In  1797,  his  name  appeared  among 
applicants  for  a  contract  to  supply  the  city  of  New  York  with  water ;  and  it 
was  unquestionably  his  fertile  mind  that  conceived  the  idea,  then  first  put  forth, 
of  obtaining  water  from  Westchester  county.  The  Bronx,  instead  of  the  Croton, 
was  the  proposed  fountain  of  supply.  In  1808,  he  published  an  interesting 
pamphlet  on  canals. 

In  1789,  Mr.  Colles  published  a  series  of  sectional  Road  Maps,  for  the  use  of 
travellers  in  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  Virginia ; 
and,  in  1794,  he  issued  the  first  number  of  "The  Geographical  Ledger."  But 
these  undertakings  were  far  from  profitable  to  him,  and  he  eked  out  a  comfort- 
able subsistence  by  land-surveying  and  itinerant  public  instruction  in  the  various 
branches  of  practical  science.  He  also  constructed  band-boxes  for  a  living, 
when  he  made  New  York  his  permanent  residence,  and  frequently  assisted  al- 
manac makers  in  their  calculations.  He  manufactured  painters'  colors,  and 
proof-glasses  to  test  the  quality  of  liquors.  Finally  "  we  find  our  ubiquitous 
philosopher  in  good  quarters  and  in  wholesome  employment,"  says  Dr.  Francis, 
as  actuary  of  the  American  Academy  of  Fine  Arts.  He  also  made  profitable 
exhibitions  of  a  telescope  and  microscope  of  his  own  construction,  and  had  a 
marine  telegraph  on  the  Government  House  at  the  Bowling-green.  These  hum- 
ble employments  did  not  lessen  him  in  the  esteem  of  the  eminent  men  of  that 
time,  who  knew  and  admired  the  profundity  of  his  acquirements ;  and  De  Witt 
Clinton  always  regarded  him  as  among  the  most  prominent  and  efficient  pro- 
moters of  internal  improvements.  Dr.  Mitchill  was  his  warm  friend;  Jarvis 
thought  it  an  honor  to  paint  his  portrait;2  and  Dr.  Hosack  commemorated  him 

1.  A  volume  composed  of  contributions  from  the  surviving  writers  for  The  Knickerbocker  Magazine, 
and  embellished  with  their  portraits.     It  was  prepared  as  a  testimonial  of  esteem  for  Lewis  Gaylord 
Clarke,  the  editor  of  the  Magazine,  and  for  his  benefit  the  profits  of  the  work  are  to  be  devoted.      The 
above  sketch  is  the  substance  of  Dr.  Francis'  Memoir  of  Colles. 

2.  That  picture  is  now  [1855]  in  the  possession  of  the  New  York  Historical  Society. 


236  THOMAS   SUMTER. 


in  his  Life  of  Clinton.  And  finally,  in  the  great  celebration  which  took  place  in 
New  York,  in  November,  1825,  when  the  waters  of  Erie  were  united  with  the 
Atlantic,  "  the  effigy  of  Colles  was  borne  with  appropriate  dignity  among  the 
emblems  of  that  vast  procession."  He  had  then  been  in  the  grave  four  years, 
having  gone  to  his  rest  in  the  Autumn  of  1821.  Of  all  the  people  of  that  great 
city  where  the  inanimate  effigy  of  Colles  was  so  soon  to  be  honored,  only  two  be- 
sides the  officiating  clergyman  followed  his  body  to  the  grave !  These  honored 
two  were  Dr.  Francis  and  John  Pintard.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Creighton  (who  declined 
the  bishopric  of  New  York,  in  1852),  officiated  on  the  occasion,  and  the  remains 
of  Christopher  Colles  were  deposited  in  the  Episcopal  burial-ground  in  Hudson 
Street.  No  memorial  marks  the  spot,  and  the  place  of  his  grave  is  doubtless 
forgotten ! 


THOMAS    SUMTER. 

THE  "  South  Carolina  Game-Cock,"  as  Sumter  was  called,  was,  next  to  Marion, 
the  most  useful  of  all  the  southern  partisans  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
Revolution.  Of  his  early  life  and  habits  we  have  no  reliable  record,  and  the 
place  of  his  birth  is  unknown.  That  event  occurred,  as  some  circumstances  in- 
dicate, about  the  year  1734.  His  name  first  appears  in  public  as  lieutenant- 
colonel  of  a  regiment  of  riflemen,  in  March,  1776,  and  he  appears  to  have  been 
in  Charleston  until  within  a  few  days  before  its  surrender  to  the  British,  in  May, 
1780.  He  was  not  among  the  prisoners,  and  was  doubtless  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  Catawba,  at  that  time,  arousing  his  countrymen  to  action.  He  was  in  the 
field  early  in  the  Summer  of  1780,  and  was  actively  engaged  in  partisan  warfare 
with  the  British  and  Tories,  when  Gates  approached  Camden,  in  August.  At 
the  close  of  July  he  had  attacked  the  British  post  at  Rocky  Mount,  on  the  Ca- 
tawba; and,  early  in  August,  he  fought  a  severe  battle  with  the  British  and 
Loyalists  at  Hanging  Rock.  Immediately  after  the  defeat  of  Gates,  Sumter  was 
attacked  by  Tarleton,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Fishing  Creek,  and  his  little  band 
was  utterly  routed  and  dispersed.  "With  a  few  survivors  and  new  volunteers, 
he  hastened  across  the  Broad  River,  ranged  the  districts  upon  its  western  banks, 
and,  in  November,  defeated  Colonel  "VVemyss,  who  attacked  his  camp  at  the 
Fish  Dam  Ford,  in  Chester  district.  Twelve  days  afterward,  he  defeated  Tarle- 
ton in  an  engagement  at  Blackstocks,  on  the  Tyger  river;  but,  being  severely 
wounded,  he  proceeded  immediately  to  North  Carolina,  where  he  remained  until 
his  wounds  were  healed. 

Early  in  February,  1781,  Sumter  again  took  the  field,  and  while  Greene  was 
retreating  before  Lord  Cornwallis,  he  was  aiding  Marion,  Pickens,  and  others,  in 
humbling  the  garrisons  of  the  enemy  on  the  borders  of  the  low  country.  He 
continued  in  active  service  during  the  whole  campaign  of  1781,  and  did  much 
toward  humbling  the  British  posts  near  Charleston ;  but  ill-health  compelled  him 
to  leave  the  army  before  the  close  of  the  war.  He  was  for  a  long  time  a  mem- 
ber of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States,  and  also  of  the  Senate 
in  the  earlier  years  of  the  Republic.  Finally,  when  he  retired  from  public  life, 
he  took  up  his  abode  near  Bradford  Springs,  on  the  High  Hills  of  Santee  (now 
Statesburg),  South  Carolina.  There  he  lived  until  he  had  almost  reached  cen- 
tenary honors.  He  died  there,  on  the  1st  of  June,  1832,  when  in  the  ninety- 
eighth  year  of  his  age.  When  the  writer  visited  that  region,  in  1849,  the  house 
and  plantation  of  General  Sumter  were  owned  by  a  mulatto  named  Ellison,  a 
man  greatly  esteemed.  He  had  purchased  the  freedom  of  himself  and  family  in 
early  life,  and  was  then  the  owner  of  a  large  estate  in  land,  and  about  sixty 
slaves. 


WILLIAM   PINKNEY. 


237 


WILLIAM    PINKNEY. 

ONE  of  the  most  profound  and  brilliant  of  the  orators  and  statesmen  of  his  age, 
was  the  equally-renowned  diplomatist,  "William  Pinkney,  of  Maryland.  He 
was  born  at  Annapolis,  on  the  17th  of  March,  1764.  Although  his  father  was  a 
staunch  loyalist,  William,  as  soon  as  he  reached  young  manhood  toward  the 
close  of  the  Revolution,  warmly  espoused  the  cause  of  the  patriots.  He  pos- 
sessed great  strength  of  mind,  but  his  early  education  was  sadly  neglected.  By 
severe  study  he  soon  made  amends,  and  took  front  rank  among  his  more  fortun- 
ate companions.  He  first  studied  the  science  of  medicine,  but,  regarding  the 
law  with  more  favor,  not  only  as  more  agreeable  to  his  inclinations  but  as  more 
promising  in  personal  distinctions,  he  abandoned  the  former,  and  devoted  his  ener- 
gies to  the  latter.  He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  at  the  age  of  twenty-two  years, 
and  soon  afterward  he  commenced  the  practice  of  his  profession  in  Harford 
county,  Maryland,  where,  in  1789,  he  married  a  sister  of  (afterward)  Commodore 
Rodgers. 

In  1792,  Mr.  Pinkney  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  executive  council  of  Mary- 
land; and,  in  1795,  was  chosen  a  delegate  to  the  State  legislature.  The  follow- 
ing year,  President  Washington  appointed  him  one  of  the  commissioners  under 


238  OLIVER  WOLCOTT. 


tho  provisions  of  Jay's  treaty,  and  he  proceeded  to  England.  He  performed  his 
arduous  and  varied  duties  with  great  ability  and  success.  Soon  after  his  return 
to  America,  in  1805,  he  removed  to  Baltimore,  and  was  immediately  appointed 
attorney-general  of  Maryland.  Tho  following  year  he  was  again  sent  to  England 
to  treat  concerning  the  impressment  of  American  seamen  into  the  British  service, 
and  other  matters  which  finally  resulted  in  war.  After  remaining  in  Europe 
several  years,  he  returned  in  1811,  and  became  one  of  the  most  ardent  supporters 
of  Mr.  Madison's  administration.  He  was  chosen  a  member  of  tho  Maryland 
Senate,  and  toward  the  close  of  1811,  President  Madison  appointed  him  attor- 
ney-general of  the  United  States.  He  went  to  tho  field  in  defence  of  his  native 
State,  in  1814,  and  fought  the  British  bravely  at  Bladensburg.  He  was  soon 
afterward  elected  to  Congress;  and,  in  1816,  he  was  appointed  minister  to  the 
court  of  St.  Petersburg.  There  he  remained  until  1820,  when  he  returned  home, 
and  was  immediately  chosen  to  a  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate.  In  that 
body,  and  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  he  labored  intensely  until 
the  close  of  1821,  when  his  health  suddenly  gave  way.  He  died  on  the  25th  of 
February,  1822,  in  the  fifty-ninth  year  of  his  age. 


OLIVER    WOLCOTT. 

HENRY  WOLCOTT  was  one  of  the  earliest  and  most  active  settlers  in  tho 
Connecticut  Valley,  whither  he  went  from  Dorchester,  near  Boston,  in 
1736,  and  made  his  residence  at  Windsor.  There,  on  the  26th  of  November, 
1726,  his  distinguished  descendant,  Oliver  Wolcott,  was  born.  At  the  age  of 
seventeen  years  he  entered  Yale  College,  as  a  student,  and  left  it  in  1747,  bear- 
ing the  usual  college  honors.  The  contest  with  the  French  and  Indians,  known 
as  King  George's  War,  was  then  in  progress,  and  young  Wolcott  obtained  a 
captain's  commission,  raised  a  company,  and  joined  the  provincial  army.  Peace 
soon  came,  but  he  held  his  commission,  and  arose  regularly  to  the  rank  of  major- 
general.  At  the  close  of  the  war  he  studied  medicine,  and  when  about  to  com- 
mence its  practice,  he  was  appointed  sheriff  of  Litchfield  county,  Connecticut, 
where  he  resided.  He  was  distinguished  for  his  early  advocacy  of  the  cause  of 
the  colonists  in  the  dispute  with  Great  Britain,  and  was  a  member  of  the  council 
of  his  native  State  from  1774  until  1786.  In  tho  meanwhile  he  was  a  member 
of  the  Continental  Congress,  chief  justice  of  Litchfield  county,  and  judge  of  pro- 
bate, of  that  district.  As  a  member  of  Congress,  ho  signed  the  Declaration  of 
Independence ;  and  he  was  also  appointed,  by  that  body,  one  of  the  commission- 
ers of  Indian  affairs  for  the  northern  department.  As  umpire  and  active  par- 
ticipator in  the  matter  of  dispute  between  Connecticut  and  Pennsylvania,  con- 
cerning the  Wyoming  Valley,  Judge  Wolcott  performed  an  important  service, 
in  procuring  a  settlement. 

At  home  Judge  Wolcott  was  very  active  in  recruiting  men  for  the  continental 
service,1  and  he  was  in  command  of  a  body  of  troops  in  the  army  of  Gates,  at 
Saratoga,  when  Burgoyne  was  captured.  In  1786,  he  was  elected  lieutenant- 

1.  When,  in  July,  1776,  the  American  soldiers  puller!  down  and  broke  in  pieces  the  leaden  equestrian 
statue  of  George  the  Third,  which  stood  in  the  Bowling-green  at  the  foot  of  Broadway,  New  York,  a 
greater  portion  of  it  was  sent  to  Governor  Wolcott,  at  Litchfield,  to  be  converted  into  bullets.  This 
service  was  performed  by  a  son  and  two  daughters  of  Governor  Wolcott,  Mr.  and  Miss  Marvin,  and  Mrs. 
Beach.  According  to  an  account-current  of  the  cartridges  made  from  that  statue,  found  among  ihe 

?apers  of  Governor  Wolcott,  it  appears  that  it  furnished  materials  for  forty-two  thousand  bullets.     Rc- 
jrringto  this  matter,  Ebenezer  Hazzard,  in  a  letter  to  Gates,  said,  "  His  [tho  king's]  troops  will  probably 
huv3  melted  majesty  fired  at  them." 


THOMAS   COOPER.  239 


governor  of  Connecticut,  and  was  annually  reflected  to  that  office  for  ten  years, 
when  he  was  chosen  chief  magistrate.  He  was  again  chosen  governor,  in  1797, 
and  was  an  incumbent  of  the  chair  of  State  at  the  time  of  his  death,  which  oc- 
curred on  the  1st  of  December,  of  that  year,  when  he  was  in  the  seventy-second 
year  of  his  age.  Inflexible  integrity,  sterling  virtue,  and  exalted  piety,  were  the 
prominent  traits  of  Governor  Wolcott's  character.  He  was  also  a  bright  example 
as  a  patriot  and  Christian. 


THOMAS    COOPKK. 

POLITICAL  as  well  as  religious  persecutions  in  Europe  have,  from  time  to 
time,  driven  many  valuable  men  to  this  country  for  their  own  preservation 
and  for  our  special  benefit.  Few  of  these  have  held  a  more  prominent  place  in 
the  public  esteem  than  Dr.  Thomas  Cooper,  for  many  years  president  of  the  Col- 
lege of  South  Carolina.  He  was  a  native  of  England,  where  he  was  born  in  1759. 
He  was  graduated  at  Oxford  University  at  the  age  of  eighteen  years.  Bearing 
in  his  hand  the  honors  of  that  institution,  and  in  his  heart  the  glowing  enthusiasm 
of  a  liberal  soul,  he  entered  boldly  and  fearlessly  upon  the  sea  of  politics,  with  a 
democratic  idea  as  his  guiding  star.  "When  the  French  Revolution  blazed  forth, 
young  Cooper  attached  himself  to  the  party  in  England  that  hailed  the  event 
with  delight,  and  he  soon  became  a  marked  man  by  friends  and  foes.  When 
the  atrocities  of  the  so-called  Republican  party,  in  France,  chilled  the  blood  of 
even  its  warm  friends  in  England,  and  enthusiasm  began  to  cool,  Cooper  found 
his  country  an  uncomfortable  and  perhaps  a  dangerous  place  to  domicil  in ;  and, 
in  1794,  he  came  to  America,  with  his  friend  Dr.  Priestly,  and  other  reformers. 
He  resided  awhile  in  New  York  city,  then  in  Philadelphia,  and  became  first  a 
judge  of  a  court  of  common  pleas  in  Pennsylvania,  and  then  professor  of  chem- 
istry in  Dickenson  College,  at  Carlisle,  in  that  State.  He  was  a  great  student, 
yet,  unlike  many  great  students,  he  was  a  dispenser  as  well  as  a  recipient  of 
knowledge.  His  attainments  were  multifarious  and  extraordinary;  and  he 
wrote  and  published  works  on  Law,  Medical  Jurisprudence,  and  Political  Econ- 
omy. Ho  translated  Justinian  and  Broussais;  and  he  was  a  habitual  writer 
upon  current  politics,  always  in  favor  of  the  Republican  party.  He  efficiently 
sustained  the  administrations  of  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Monroe.  Jefferson 
offered  him  the  Professorship  of  Chemistry  in  the  University  of  Virginia,  but  he 
declined  it.  He  subsequently  filled  the  same  chair  in  the  College  of  South 
Carolina,  where  his  lectures  were  of  the  highest  order,  not  only  on  account  of 
their  scientific  instructions,  but  for  their  beauty  as  specimens  of  English  com- 
position. He  finally  became  president  of  that  institution,  yet,  with  all  his  wealth 
of  knowledge  and  peculiar  powers  of  impartation,  the  institution  did  not  flourish 
to  that  degree  which  the  accomplishments  of  its  head  taught  its  friends  to  ex- 
pect. The  reason  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  Dr.  Cooper  was  an  avowed  un- 
believer in  revealed  religion,  and  Christian  parents  would  not  intrust  their  chil- 
dren to  his  care.  He  was  the  more  dangerous  in  this  respect,  because  his  man- 
ners were  captivating,  and  his  opposition  to  Christianity  was  so  courteous,  that 
no  one  was  repelled  by  a  shock  such  as  the  writings  of  Paine  and  others  give  to 
the  soul  which  had  hitherto  dwelt  in  an  atmosphere  of  belief.  Dr.  Cooper  was 
nn  esteemed  resident  of  Columbia,  South  Carolina,  for  about  twenty  years,  and 
died  there,  while  in  the  performance  of  his  duties  PS  president  of  the  college,  on 
the  llth  of  May,  1839,  in  the  eightieth  year  of  his  ago. 


240  WILLIAM  HENRY  HARRISON. 


SAMUEL    HOPKINS. 

FEW  theologians  of  our  country  have  exerted  a  wider  special  influence  than 
Samuel  Hopkins,  a  descendant  of  Governor  Hopkins,  of  Connecticut,  and 
the  chief  of  the  Calvinistic  sect  of  Christians  known  as  Hopkinsians.  He  was 
born  in  Waterbury,  Connecticut,  on  the  17th  of  September,  1721,  and  in  the 
excellent  society  of  that  town  his  youth  was  spent,  and  the  labors  of  a  farm 
were  his  occupation.  He  was  graduated  at  Yale  College,  in  1741,  and  that  year 
he  heard  both  Whitefield  and  Gilbert  Tennant  preach.  Their  sermons  made  a 
deep  impression  upon  his  mind,  and  almost  unsettled  his  reason.  He  remained 
a  recluse  in  his  father's  house  for  several  months,  and  then  went  to  Northampton 
to  study  divinity  under  Jonathan  Edwards.  He  was  ordained  a  Christian  min- 
ister at  Great  Barrington,  Massachusetts,  on  the  28th  of  December,  1743.  There 
he  remained  until  1769,  when  he  was  dismissed  by  an  ecclesiastical  council.  He 
went  to  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  in  1770,  where  he  preached  for  awhile,  but 
new  views  concerning  vital  religion,  which  he  had  put  forth,  displeased  many 
of  his  hearers,  and,  at  a  meeting,  they  resolved  not  to  give  him  a  call  as  a  pastor. 
He  prepared  to  leave  them,  and  preached  a  farewell  sermon.  That  discourse  so 
interested  and  impressed  the  people,  that  they  urged  him  to  remain  and  become 
their  pastor.  He  complied,  and  the  connection  was  severed  only  by  his  death 
thirty-three  years  afterward.  When  the  British  took  possession  of  Rhode  Island, 
in  1776,  Mr.  Hopkins  retired,  with  his  family,  to  Great  Barrington,  and  preached 
at  Newburyport,  Canterbury,  and  Stamford.  After  the  evacuation  of  Rhode 
Island,  by  the  British,  in  1780,  he  returned  to  Newport,  but  his  flock  were  so 
scattered  and  impoverished,  that  they  could  not  give  him  a  stated  salary.  Yet 
he  declined  invitations  to  preach  elsewhere  to  more  favored  congregations ;  and 
during  the  remainder  of  his  life  he  continued  a  faithful  pastor  there,  and  sub- 
sisted upon  the  weekly  contributions  of  his  friends.  He  was  deprived  of  the 
use  of  his  limbs,  by  paralysis,  in  1799,  but  so  far  recovered  as  to  be  able  to 
preach  again.  He  died  on  the  20th  of  December,  1803,  at  the  age  of  eighty-two 
years.  Dr.  Hopkins  was  an  inefficient  preacher.  His  pen,  and  not  his  tongue, 
was  the  chief  utterer  of  those  sentiments  which  have  made  his  name  famous  as 
a  Calvinistic  theologian.1 


WILLIAM    HENRY    HARRISON. 

ON  the  banks  of  the  James  River,  in  Charles  City  county,  Virginia,  is  a  plain 
mansion,  around  which  is  spread  the  beautiful  estate  of  Berkeley,  the  birth- 
place of  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  of  one  of  the  Presidents 
of  the  United  States.  The  former  was  Benjamin  Harrison,  whose  career  we 
have  already  sketched.  The  latter  was  his  son,  William  Henry  Harrison,  whose 
life  we  will  now  consider.  He  was  born  on  the  9th  of  February,  1773.  At  a 
suitable  age  he  was  placed  in  Hampden  Sydney  College,  where  he  was  graduated ; 
and  then,  under  the  supervision  of  his  guardian  (Robert  Morris),  in  Philadelphia, 
prepared  himself  for  the  practice  of  the  medical  art.  At  about  that  time  an 

1.  Dr.  Hopkins  not  only  embraced  the  whole  Calvinislic  doctrine  of  ''total  depravity"  and  "pre- 
destination and  election,"  but  added  thereto  some  extraordinary  views  concerning  1he  origin  and  natire 
of  sin,  quite  incompatible  with  reason  or  common  sense.  Yet  many  embraced  his  doctrines  :  and  his  two 
volumes  of  sermons  have  been  extensively  read  and  admired  by  those  who  have  a  taste  for  such  meta- 
physical disquisitions. 


WILLIAM  HENRY  HARRISON. 


241 


army  was  gathering  to  chastise  the  hostile  Indians  in  the  North-west.  Young 
Harrison's  military  genius  was  stirred  within  him,  and  having  obtained  an  en- 
sign's commission  from  President  "Washington,  he  joined  the  army  at  the  age  of 
nineteen  years.  He  was  promoted  to  a  lieutenancy,  in  1792;  and,  in  1794,  ho 
followed  "Wayne  to  conflicts  with  the  North-western  tribes,  where  he  greatly 
distinguished  himself.  He  was  appointed  secretary  of  the  North-western  Ter- 
ritory, in  1797,  and  resigned  his  military  commission.  Two  years  afterward, 
when  only  twenty-six  years  of  age,  he  was  elected  the  first  delegate  to  Congress 
from  the  Territory.1  On  the  erection  of  Indiana  into  a  separate  territorial 
government,  in  1801,  Harrison  was  appointed  its  chief  magistrate,  and  he  was 
continued  in  that  office,  by  consecutive  reappointments,  until  1813,2  when  the 
war  with  Great  Britain  called  him  to  a  more  important  sphere  of  action.  He 
had  already  exhibited  his  military  skill  in  the  battle  with  the  Indians  at  Tippe- 
canoe,  in  the  Autumn  of  1811.  He  was  commissioned  a  major-general  in  the 
Kentucky  militia,  by  brevet,  early  in  1812.  After  the  surrender  of  General 
Hull,  at  Detroit,  he  was  appointed  major-general  in  the  army  of  the  United 
States,  and  intrusted  with  the  command  of  the  North-western  division.  He  was 
one  of  the  best  officers  in  that  war;  but,  after  achieving  the  battle  of  the  Thames, 

1.  It  included  the  present  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Michigan.    General  St.  Clair  was  then 
governor  of  the  Territory. 

2.  He  had  also  held  the  office  of  commissioner  of  Indian  affairs,  in  that  Territory,  and  had  concluded 
no  less  than  thirteen  important  treaties  with  the  different  tribes. 

11 


242  ARTHUR  ST.  GLAIR. 

and  other  victories  in  the  lake  country,  his  military  services  were  concluded. 
He  resigned  his  commission,  in  1814,  in  consequence  of  a  misunderstanding  with 
the  Secretary  of  War,  and  retired  to  his  farm  at  North  Bend,  Ohio.  He  served 
as  commissioner  in  negotiating  Indian  treaties ;  and  the  voice  of  a  grateful 
people  afterward  called  him  to  represent  them  in  the  legislature  of  Ohio,  and  of 
the  nation.  He  was  elected  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  in  1824.  In 
1828,  he  was  appointed  minister  to  Colombia,  one  of  the  South  American  Re- 
publics. He  was  recalled,  by  President  Jackson,  on  account  of  some  differences 
of  opinion  respecting  diplomatic  events  in  that  region,  when  he  returned  home, 
and  again  sought  the  repose  of  private  life.  There  he  remained  about  ten  years, 
when  he  was  called  forth  to  receive  from  the  American  people  the  highest  honor 
in  their  gift — the  chief  magistracy  of  the  Republic.  He  was  elected  President 
of  the  United  States  by  an  immense  majority,  and  was  inaugurated  on  the  4th 
of  March,  1841.  For  more  than  twenty  days  he  bore  the  unceasing  clamors  for 
office,  with  which  the  ears  of  a  new  president  are  always  assailed ;  and  then  his 
slender  constitution,  pressed  by  the  weight  of  almost  threescore  and  ten  years, 
suddenly  gave  way.  The  excitements  of  his  new  station  increased  a  slight  disease 
caused  by  a  cold,  and  on  the  4th  of  April— just  one  month  after  the  inauguration 
pageant  at  the  presidential  mansion, — the  honored  occupant  was  a  corpse.  He 
was  succeeded  in  office  by  the  vice-president,  John  Tyler. 


ARTHUR    ST.    CLAIR. 

rTHERE  were  brave  soldiers,  full  of  confidence  in  themselves  and  their  com- 
1  panions-in-arms,  during  the  "War  for  Independence,  who  lacked  skill  as 
leaders,  and  failed  in  winning  that  fame  to  which  their  courage  entitled  them. 
Arthur  St.  Clair  was  of  that  number.  He  was  an  officer  of  acknowledged  bravery 
and  prudence,  yet  he  was  far  from  being  an  expert  military  leader.  He  was 
born  at  Edinburgh,  in  Scotland,  in  1734,  and  was  a  lieutenant  in  the  army  under 
Wolfe,  in  the  campaign  against  Canada,  in  1759.  He  remained  in  America, 
after  the  peace,  and  was  placed  in  command  of  Fort  Ligonier,  in  Westmoreland 
county,  Pennsylvania.  He  also  received  a  grant  of  a  thousand  acres  of  land  in 
that  then  wilderness,  and  resided  there  until  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution. 
He  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  a  battalion  of  Pennsylvania  militia,  in 
January,  1776,  and  received  from  Congress  the  commission  of  colonel.  He  raised 
a  regiment,  proceeded  to  the  northern  department  to  operate  against  Canada, 
and,  in  August,  was  promoted  to  brigadier-general.  He  behaved  with  great 
bravery  and  skill  in  the  battles  at  Trenton  and  Princeton ;  and,  in  February, 
1777,  he  was  commissioned  a  major-general.  He  was  placed  in  command  of 
Ticonderoga  the  following  Summer.  The  post  was  weak  in  many  ways,  and 
when,  in  July,  Burgoyne,  with  a  powerful  army,  approached  and  took  an  ad- 
vantageous position,  St.  Clair  abandoned  it,  and  retreated  toward  the  Hudson, 
where  Schuyler  was  preparing  to  meet  the  invaders.  That  retreat  proved  a 
disastrous  one  in  the  loss  of  men  and  munitions.  A  court  of  inquiry  honorably 
acquitted  him;  and,  in  1780,  he  was  ordered  to  Rhode  Island.  Circumstances 
prevented  his  taking  command  there;  and,  in  1781,  when  the  allied  American 
and  French  armies  proceeded  to  attack  Cornwallis,  at  Yorktown,  in  Virginia,  he 
remained  in  Philadelphia,  with  a  considerable  force,  to  protect  Congress.  Ho 
obtained  permission  to  join  the  main  army,  and  arrived  at  Yorktowri  during  the 
siege.  After  the  capture  of  the  British  army  there,  he  proceeded  to  join  General 


FRANCOIS   XAVIER   MARTIN. 


Greene,  in  the  South,  and  on  his  way  he  drove  the  British  from  Wilmington, 
North  Carolina. 

General  St.  Glair  was  a  member  of  the  executive  council  of  Pennsylvania,  in 
1783,  and  was  elected  to  Congress  three  years  afterward.  He  was  president  of 
that  body,  early  in  1787.  Upon  the  erection  of  the  North-western  Territory  into 
a  government,  in  1788,  he  was  appointed  its  governor,  and  held  that  office  until 
1802,  when  Ohio  was  admitted  into  the  Union  as  a  sovereign  State. 

St.  Clair  commanded  an  army  against  the  Miami  Indians,  in  1791 ;  and,  in  the 
Autumn  of  that  year,  was  defeated  with  the  loss  of  almost  seven  hundred  men. 
He  was  then  suffering  from  severe  illness,  yet  bore  himself  bravely.  Public 
censure  was  loud  and  ungenerous,  but  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Represent- 
atives acquitted  him  of  all  blame.  When  he  retired  from  public  life,  in  1802,  he 
was  an  old  man,  and  almost  ruined  in  fortune.  He  resided  in  dreary  loneliness 
near  Laurel  Hill,  Westmoreland  county,  and  for  a  long  time  vainly  petitioned 
Congress  to  allow  certain  claims.  He  finally  obtained  a  pension  of  sixty  dollars 
a  month,  and  his  last  days  were  made  comfortable.  He  died  on  the  31st  of ' 
August,  1818,  at  the  age  of  eighty-four  years.  His  remains  rest  in  the  grave- 
yard of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  at  Greensburg,  and  over  it  the  Masonic  frater- 
nity placed  a  handsome  monument,  in  1832. 


FRANCOIS    XAVIER    MARTIN. 

PERHAPS  one  of  the  most  learned  jurists  and  erudite  scholars  that  ever 
adorned  the  profession  of  the  law,  in  this  country,  was  Francois  Xavier 
Martin,  better  known  to  the  general  reader  as  the  accomplished  Historian  of 
North  Carolina.1  He  was  born  at  Marseilles,  in  France,  on  the  17th  of  March, 
1762.  At  the  age  of  twenty  years  he  came  to  America.  The  war  of  the  Revo- 
lution was  then  just  drawing  to  a  close,  and  he  took  up  his  residence  at  New- 
born, in  North  Carolina,  and  prepared  himself  for  the  profession  of  the  law.  On 
his  first  appearance  at  the  bar,  he  gave  evidence  of  that  acuteness  which  marked 
his  whole  career,  in  whatever  station  in  life  he  was  called  to  act.  His  practice 
became  extensive  and  lucrative,  and  ho  soon  took  a  high  social  position  in  his 
adopted  State.  In  1806,  he  was  called  to  represent  Newborn  district  in  the 
House  of  Commons  of  North  Carolina.  Soon  after  the  close  of  his  duties  therein, 
President  Madison  (in  1809)  appointed  him  United  States  Judge  of  tho  Missis- 
sippi Territory,  and  ho  made  his  residence  at  Natchez.  On  the  1st  of  February, 
1815,  he  was  elevated  by  Governor  Claiborne  to  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  Louisiana,  as  one  of  the  associate  judges.  He  held  that  office  for  twenty -two 
years,  when,  in  January,  1837,  he  became  chief  justice  of  the  State,  on  the  death 
of  Judge  Mathews.  Chief  Justice  Martin  remained  at  the  head  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Louisiana  until  the  adoption  of  the  present  constitution  of  that  State, 
in  the  Autumn  of  1845,  when  he  retired  to  private  life.  He  was  then  in  the 
eighty -fourth  year  of  his  age.  Judge  Martin  lived  but  a  little  more  than  a  year 
after  his  retirement.  He  died  on  the  10th  of  December,  1846.  No  man  ever 
left  an  official  station  with  fewer  stains  of  sins  of  omission  or  commission  upon  his 
garment,  than  Judge  Martin,  for  through  his  long  life  not  a  syllable  in  disparage- 
ment of  his  honesty  and  integrity  was  ever  uttered.  His  memory  is  cherished 
with  the  deepest  affection  by  the  members  of  his  profession,  and  by  the  com- 
munity in  which  he  lived. 

1.  His  History  of  North  Carolina,  including  the  story  of  its  discovery,  settlement,  and  progress  of 
colonization,  until  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  was  commenced  in  1791,  but  was  not  published 
until  1829,  when  it  was  issued  from  a  New  Orleans  press,  in  two  octavo  volumes. 


244  ANDREW  JACKSON. 


ANDREW    JACKSON. 

"  A  SK  nothing  but  what  is  right — submit  to  nothing  wrong,"  was  Andrew 
xlL  Jackson's  great  political  maxim ;  and  it  was  an  abiding  principle  in  his 
character  from  his  earliest  youth  until  the  close  of  his  life.  That  noble  principle 
was  the  key  to  his  great  success  in  whatever  he  undertook,  and  is  worthy  of 
adoption  by  every  young  man  when  he  sets  out  upon  the  perilous  voyage  of 
active  life.  Jackson's  parents  were  from  the  north  of  Ireland,  and  were  among 
the  early  Scotch-Irish  settlers  in  the  upper  part  of  South  Carolina,  in  the  vicinity 
of  Waxhaw  Creek.  Jackson's  father  lived  north  of  the  dividing  line  between 
North  and  South  Carolina,  in  Mecklenburg  county,  and  there  Andrew  was  bom 
on  the  15th  of  March,  1767.  His  father  died  five  days  afterward,  and  a  month 
later,  his  mother  took  up  her  abode  in  South  Carolina,  near  the  meeting-house 
of  the  Waxhaw  settlement.  He  received  a  fair  education,  for  his  mother  designed 
him  for  the  Christian  ministry.  But  his  studies  were  interrupted  by  the  tumults 
of  the  on-coming  Revolution,  and  soon  after  the  fall  of  Charleston,  the  Waxhaw 
settlement  became  a  terrible  scene  of  blood,  in  the  massacre  of  Buford's  regiment 
by  the  fiery  Tarleton.1  Every  element  of  the  lion  in  young  Jackson's  nature 
was  aroused  by  this  event,  and,  boy  as  he  was,  not  yet  fourteen  years  of  age,  ho 
joined  the  patriot  army  and  went  to  the  field.  One  of  his  brothers  was  killed 
at  Stono,  and  himself  and  another  brother  were  made  captives,  in  1781.  The 
widow  was  soon  bereaved  of  all  her  family,  but  Andrew;  and  after  making  a 
journey  of  mercy  to  Charleston,  to  relieve  sick  prisoners,  she  fell  by  the  way- 
side, and  'the  place  of  her  sepulchre  is  not  known  unto  this  day.'  Left  alone 
at  a  critical  period  of  life,  with  some  property  at  his  disposal,  young  Jackson 
commenced  a  career  that  promised  certain  destruction.  He  suddenly  reformed, 
studied  law,  and  was  licensed  to  practice,  in  1786.  He  was  soon  afterward  ap- 
pointed solicitor  of  the  Western  District  of  Tennessee,  and  journeying  over  the 
mountains,  he  commenced,  in  that  then  wilderness,  that  remarkable  career  as 
attorney,  judge,  legislator,  and  military  commander,  which  on  contemplation 
assumes  the  features  of  the  wildest  romance,  viewed  from  any  point  of  apprecia- 
tion. His  lonely  journeyings,  his  collisions  with  the  Indians,  his  difficulties 
with  gamblers  and  fraudulent  creditors  and  land  speculators,  and  his  wonderful 
personal  triumphs  in  hours  of  greatest  danger,  make  the  record  of  his  life  one  of 
rare  interest  and  instruction. 

In  1790,  Jackson  made  his  residence  at  Nashville,  and  there  he  married  an 
accomplished  woman,  who  had  been  divorced  from  her  husband.  In  1795,  he 
assisted  in  forming  a  State  Constitution  for  Tennessee,  and  was  elected  the  first 
representative,  in  Congress,  of  the  new  State.  In  the  Autumn  of  1797,  he  took 
a  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate,  to  which  he  had  been  chosen,  and  was  a 
conspicuous  supporter  of  the  democratic  party.  He  did  not  remain  long  at 
Washington.  Soon  after  leaving  the  Senate,  he  was  appointed  judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  his  State.  He  resigned  that  office,  in  1804,  and  retired  to  his 
beautiful  estate  near  Nashville.  There  he  was  visited  by  Aaron  Burr,  in  1805, 
and  entered  warmly  into  his  schemes  for  invading  Mexico.  When  Burr's  inten- 
tions were  suspected,  Jackson  refused  further  intercourse  with  him  until  he  should 
prove  the  purity  of  his  intentions.  For  many  years  Jackson  was  chief  military 
commander  in  his.  section ;  and  when  war  against  Great  Britain  was  proclaimed, 

1.  Tarleton  gave  no  quarter,  and  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  ready  to  surrender  to  superior 
numbers,  were  killed  or  cruelly  maimed.  The  wourded  and  the  dying  were  taken  into  the  Waxhaw 
meeting-house,  and  there  the  mother  of  Jackson,  and  other  women,  attended  them.  Under  the  roof  of 
that  sacred  edifice,  young  Jackson  first  saw  the  demon  of  war  in  its  most  horrid  form,  and  all  that 
misery  and  British  power  and  oppression,  were  ever  afterward  associated  in  his  mind. 


ANDREW  JACKSON. 


245 


in  1812,  he  longed  for  employment  in  the  field.  He  was  called  to  duty  in  1813. 
Early  the  following  year  he  was  made  a  major-general,  and  from  that  time  until 
his  great  victory  at  New  Orleans,  on  the  8th  of  January,  1815,  his  name  was 
identified  with  every  military  movement  in  the  South,  whether  against  the  hos- 
tile Indians,  Britons,  or  Spaniards.  In  1818,  he  engaged  successfully  in  a  cam- 
paign against  the  Seminoles  and  other  Southern  Indians,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
he  taught  the  Spanish  authorities  in  Florida  some  useful  lessons,  and  hastened 
the  cession  of  that  territory  to  the  United  States. 

In  1821,  President  Monroe  appointed  General  Jackson  governor  of  Florida; 
and,  in  1823,  he  offered  him  the  station  of  resident  minister  in  Mexico.  He 
declined  the  honor,  but  accepted  a  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate,  to  which 
the  legislature  of  Tennessee  had  elected  him.  He  was  one  of  the  four  candi- 
dates for  President  of  the  United  States,  in  1824,  but  was  unsuccessful.  He  was 
elevated  to  that  exalted  station,  in  1828,  by  a  large  majority,  and  was  reflected, 
in  1832.  His  administration  of  eight  years  was  marked  by  great  energy;  and 
never  were  the  affairs  of  the  Eepublic.  in  its  domestic  and  foreign  relations,  more 
prosperous  than  at  the  close  of  his  term  of  office.  In  the  Spring  of  1837,  he 
retired  from  public  life  forever,  and  sought  repose  after  a  long  and  laborious  career, 
devoted  to  the  service  of  his  country.  He  lived  quietly  at  his  residence  near 
Nashville,  called  The  Hermitage,  until  on  a  calm  Sunday,  the  8th  of  June,  1845, 
his  spirit  went  home.  He  was  then  a  little  more  than  seventy-eight  years  of 


246  NATHANIEL  BOWDITCH. 

age.  The  memory  of  that  great  and  good  man  is  revered  by  his  countrymen, 
next  to  that  of  Washington,  and  to  him  has  been  awarded  the  first  equestrian 
statue  in  bronze  ever  erected  in  this  country.  It  is  colossal,  and  occupies  a 
conspicuous  place  in  President's  Square,  "Washington  city,  where  it  was  reared 
in  1852. 


NATHANIEL   BOWDITCH. 

THE  practical  man  who,  in  any  degree,  lightens  the  burden  of  human  labor,  is 
eminently  a  public  benefactor.  Such  was  Nathaniel  Bowditch,  who,  by 
navigators,  has  been  aptly  termed  The  Great  Pilot.  He  was  the  son  of  a  poor 
ship-master,  of  Salem,  where  Nathaniel  was  born  on  the  26th  of  March,  1773. 
His  education  was  acquired  at  a  district  school ;  and  at  the  age  of  thirteen  years 
he  was  apprenticed  to  a  ship-chandler.  He  performed  his  duties  faithfully  until 
manhood,  and  during  his  whole  apprenticeship  he  employed  every  leisure  mo- 
ment in  reading  and  study.  Mathematics  was  his  favorite  study,  and  it  became 
the  medium  of  his  greatest  public  services. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-two  years  young  Bowditch  went  on  a  voyage  to  the 
East  Indies,  as  captain's  clerk,  and  his  naturally  strong  mind  was  engaged  chiefly 
on  the  subject  of  navigation,  while  at  sea.  The  result  of  his  reflections,  observa- 
tions, and  calculations,  was  the  publication,  in  1802,  of  the  well-known  nautical 
work,  entitled  the  New  American  Practical  Navigator.1  For  nine  years  he  was 
himself  a  practical  navigator,  and  during  that  time  he  rose  gradually  from  captain's 
clerk  to  master.  He  left  the  sea,  in  1804,  and  became  president  of  a  Marine 
Insurance  Company,  at  Salem.  That  office  he  held  for  almost  twenty  years. 
Two  years  before,  while  his  ship  lay  wind-bound  in  Boston  Harbor,  Captain 
Bowditch  went  to  Cambridge  to  listen  to  the  commencement  exercises  at  Har- 
vard College,  and  while  standing  in  the  crowded  aisle,  he  heard  his  own  name 
announced,  by  the  president,  as  the  recipient  of  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts. 
It  was  to  him  the  proudest  day  of  his  life.  He  was  then  about  twenty-nine 
years  of  age. 

In  1806,  Mr.  Bowditch  published  an  admirable  chart  of  the  harbors  of  Salem, 
Beverly,  Marblehead,  and  Manchester.  In  1816,  he  received  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Laws,  from  Harvard  College ;  and  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Royal 
Society  of  London,  in  1818.  He  contributed  many  valuable  papers  to  scientific 
publications,  but  the  great  work  of  his  life  was  the  translation  and  annotation 
of  Laplace's  Mecanique  Celeste.  He  published  it  at  his  own  expense  entirety, 
remarking  that  he  would  rather  spend  a  thousand  doUars  a  year,  in  that  way, 
than  to  ride  in  his  carriage.  It  was  a  task  of  great  labor  and  expense,  and  con- 
sists of  five  large  volumes.  The  first  was  published  in  1829,  the  second  in  1832, 
and  the  third  in  1834.  He  read  the  last  proof  sheets  of  the  fourth  volume  only 
a  few  days  before  his  death.  The  revision  of  the  fifth  was  left  to  other  hands. 
Dr.  Bowditch  died  on  the  16th  of  March,  1838;  and  his  last  words  were  "Lord, 
now  lettest  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  according  to  thy  word."  lie  was 
a  man  of  great  literary  and  scientific  attainments,  and  was  proficient  in  the 

1.  The  origin  of  (hat  work  shows  how  comparatively  insignificant  events  will  result  in  great  benefits. 
On  the  day  previous  to  his  sailing  on  his  last  voyage,  he  was  called  upon  by  Edumnd  N.  Blunt,  then  a 
noted  publisher  of  charts  and  nautical  books,  at  Newburyport,  and  requested  1o  continue  the  corrections 
which  he  had  previously  commenced  on  Moore's  book  on  navigation,  then  in  common  use.  In  perform- 
ance of  his  promise  to  do  so,  he  detected  so  many  and  important  errors,  that  he  resolved  to  prepare  an 
entire  new  work.  That  work  was  his  Practical  Navigator. 


MARINUS   WILLETT.  247 


Latin,  Greek,  French,  Italian,  Spanish,  Portuguese,  and  German  languages.  Ho 
was  not  ambitious  for  public  life,  yet  he  twi-ce  occupied  a  seat  in  the  executive 
council  of  Governor  Strong,  of  Massachusetts.  His  memory  is  sweet  for  his  lifo 
was  pure. 


MAKINIJS    WILLETT. 

Vf  0  member  of  the  associated  Sons  of  Liberty,  in  New  York,  exceeded  Marimis 
1\  Willett  in  devotion  to  republican  principles,  and  in  boldness  of  action  when 
called  to  their  support.  He  was  born  at  Jamaica,  Long  Island,  on  the  10th  of 
August,  1740.  Ho  was  one  of  thirteen  children,  and  lived  to  survive  them  all. 
The  French  and  Indian  war  was  burning  fiercely  in  northern  New  York  when 
he  approached  young  manhood.  His  military  passion  was  fired,  and,  before  he 
was  eighteen  years  of  age,  he  entered  the  provincial  army  with  a  second  lieu- 
tenant's commission,  under  the  command  of  Colonel  Oliver  Delancy.1  He  shared 
in  the  misery  of  Abercrombie's  defeat  at  Ticonderoga,  in  1758;  and  immediately 
afterward  he  accompanied  Colonel  Bradstreet  in  his  successful  expedition  against 
Fort  Frontenac  (now  Kingston,  Upper  Canada),  at  the  foot  of  Lake  Ontario. 
Fatigue  and  exposure  impaired  his  health,  and  he  left  the  service  soon  afterward. 
"When,  a  few  years  later,  the  Stamp  Act  spread  a  deep  and  ominous  murmur 
over  the  land,  Mr.  Willett  had  chosen  his  banner,  and  from  that  time  until  the 
organization  of  an  army  of  patriots  to  fight  for  liberty,  he  was  one  of  the  boldest 
supporters  of  his  country's  rights,  by  word  and  deed. 

When  British  troops  in  New  York  were  ordered  to  Boston,  after  the  skirmish 
at  Lexington,  they  attempted  to  carry  oft' a  large  quantity  of  spare  arms,  in  ad- 
dition to  their  own.  Willett  resolved  to  prevent  it,  and,  though  opposed  by  the 
mayor  and  other  Whigs,  he  led  a  body  of  citizens,  captured  the  baggage- wagons 
containing  them,  and  took  them  back  to  the  city.  These  arms  were  afterward 
used  by  the  first  regiment  raised  by  the  State  of  New  York.  Willett  was  appointed 
second  captain  of  a  company  in  Colonel  M'Dougal's  regiment,  and  accompanied 
Montgomery  in  his  northern  expedition.  After  the  capture  of  St.  John's,  on  the 
Sorel,  he  escorted  prisoners  taken  at  Chambly,  to  Ticonderoga,  and  then  was 
placed  in  command  of  St.  John's.  Ho  held  that  post  until  January,  177G.  In 
November  of  that  year  he  was  appointed  lieutenant-colonel ;  and,  at  the  opening 
of  the  campaign  of  1777,  he  was  placed  in  command  of  Fort  Constitution,  on  the 
Hudson,  opposite  West  Point.  In  May  he  was  ordered  to  Fort  Stanwix,  or 
Schuyler  (now  Rome),  where  he  performed  signal  services.  Ho  was  left  in  com- 
mand of  the  fort,  and  remained  there  until  the  Summer  of  1778,  when  he  joined 
the  army  under  Washington,  and  was  at  the  battle  of  Monmouth.  He  accom- 
panied Sullivan  in  his  campaign  against  the  Indians  in  1779,  and  was  actively 
engaged  in  the  Mohawk  Valley,  in  1780,  1781,  and  1782.  At  the  close  of  the 
war  he  returned  to  civil  pursuits.  Washington  highly  esteemed  him ;  and,  in 
1792,  he  was  sent  by  the  President  to  treat  with  the  Creek  Indians  at  the  South. 
The  same  year  he  was  appointed  a  brigadier-general  in  the  army  intended  to 
act  against  the  North-western  Indians.  He  declined  the  appointment,  for  he 
was  opposed  to  the  expedition.  He  was  for  some  time  sheriff'  of  New  York,  and 
was  elected  mayor  of  the  city,  in  1807.  Ho  was  chosen  elector  of  president  and 

1.  It  may  be  interesting  to  the  young  to  know  the  style  of  a  military  dress  at  that  time.  Willett  thns 
describes  his  own  uniform  :  A  green  coat  trimmed  with  silver  twist,  white  under-clothes,  and  black 
gaiters  ;  also  a  cocked  hat,  with  a  large  black  cockade  of  silk  ribbon,  together  with  a  silver  button  and 
loop. 


248  JOHN   STARK. 


vice-president,  in  1824,  and  was  made  president  of  the  Electoral  College. 
Colonel  "Willett  died  in  the  city  of  New  York,  on  the  23d  of  August,  1830,  in 
the  ninety-first  year  of  his  age. 


JOHN    STARK. 

"  T)  OYS 1  there  's  the  enemy.  They  must  le  beat,  or  Molly  Stark  must  sleep  a 
Jj  widow  this  night !  Forward,  boys!  March!"  Such  were  the  vigorous 
words  of  a  hero  of  two  wars,  the  gallant  General  Stark,  as  he  led  his  corps  of 
Green  Mountain  Boys  to  attack  the  Hessians  and  Tories,  near  Bennington.  He 
was  an  unpolished  soldier,  who  had  learned  the  art  of  desultory  warfare  in  ser- 
vice against  the  French  and  Indians  in  northern  New  York.  He  was  the  son 
of  a  Scotchman,  and  was  born  at  Londonderry  (now  the  city  of  Manchester), 
New  Hampshire,  on  the  28th  of  August,  1728.  His  early  childhood  was  spent 
in  the  midst  of  the  wild  scenery  of  his  birth-place,  and  in  youth  he  was  remark- 
able for  expertness  in  trapping  the  beaver  and  otter,  and  in  hunting  the  bear 
and  deer.  Just  before  the  breaking  out  of  the  French  and  Indian  war,  he  pen- 
etrated the  forests  far  northward,  and  was  captured  by  some  St.  Francis  Indians. 
He  suffered  dreadfully  for  a  long  time,  and  then  was  ransomed  at  a  great  price. 
This  circumstance  gave  him  good  cause  for  leading  a  company  of  Eangers  against 
these  very  Indians  and  their  sometimes  equally  savage  French  allies,  four  years 
afterward.  He  became  a  captain,  under  Major  Eogers,  in  1756,  and  in  that  school 
lie  was  taught  those  lessons  which  he  practiced  so  usefully  twenty  years  later. 
"When  intelligence  reached  the  valleys  of  the  North,  that  blood  had  been  shed 
at  Lexington,  Stark  led  the  train-bands  of  his  district  to  Cambridge,  and  was 
commissioned  a  colonel,  with  eight  hundred  men  under  his  banner.  "With  these 
he  fought  bravely  in  the  battle  of  Bunker's  Hill.  He  went  to  New  York  after 
the  British  evacuated  Boston,  in  the  Spring  of  1776.  Then,  at  the  head  of  a 
brigade  in  the  northern  department,  under  Gates,  he  performed  essential  service 
in  the  vicinity  of  Lake  Champlain ;  and  near  the  close  of  the  year,  he  commanded 
the  right  wing  of  Sullivan's  column  in  the  battle  at  Trenton.  He  shared  in  the 
honors  at  Princeton ;  but,  being  overlooked  by  Congress  when  promotions  were 
made,  he  resigned  his  commission  and  retired  from  the  army.  But  when  the 
invader  approached  from  the  North,  his  own  State  called  him  to  the  field,  in 
command  of  its  brave  sons ;  and  on  the  Walloomscoik,  a  few  miles  from  Ben- 
nington, he  won  that  decisive  battle  which  gave  him  world-wide  renown.  Then 
it  was  that  he  made  the  rough  but  effective  speech  above  quoted,  that  indicated 
the  alternative  of  death  or  victory.  Congress  was  no  longer  tardy  in  acknowl- 
edging his  services,  for  he  had  given  that  crippling  blow  to  Burgoyne,  which 
insured  to  Gates'  army  a  comparatively  easy  victory.  The  national  legislature 
gave  him  grateful  thanks,  and  a  brigadier's  commission  in  the  Continental  army. 
He  joined  Gates  at  Saratoga,  and  shared  in  the  honors  of  that  great  victory.  In 
1779,  he  was  on  duty  on  Rhode  Island,  and  the  following  year  he  fought  the 
British  and  Hessians  at  Springfield,  in  New  Jersey.  In  the  Autumn  of  1780, 
he  was  one  of  the  board  of  officers  that  tried  and  condemned  the  unfortunate 
Major  Andre ;  and  until  the  last  scenes  of  the  war,  he  was  in  active  service. 
When  he  sheathed  his  sword,  he  left  the  arena  of  public  life  forever,  though  he 
lived  almost  forty  years  afterward.  General  Stark  died  on  the  8th  of  May,  1822, 
at  the  age  of  almost  ninety-four  years.  Near  his  birth-place,  on  the  east  side 
of  the  Merrimac,  is  a  granite  shaft,  bearing  the  simple  inscription,  MAJOR-GEN- 
ERAL STARK.  His  eulogium  is  daily  uttered  by  our  free  institutions — his  epitaph 
is  in  the  memory  of  his  deeds. 


PHILLIS   WHEATLEY. 


249 


'4     ^4^S&y 

X 

PHILLIS    WHEATLEY. 

"  'Twas  mercy  brought  me  from  my  pagan  land, 
Taught  my  benighted  soul  to  understand 
That  there  's  a  God— that  there  'a  &  Saviour  too ; 
Once  I  redemption  neither  sought  nor  knew." 

SO  felt  the  heart,  and  so  recorded  the  pen  of  a  child  of  Africa,  who,  by  her 
talent  and  virtue,  honored  her  race  and  challenged  the  kindly  regard  of 
many  of  the  good  and  great  of  our  country.  The  lady  of  a  respectable  citizen 
of  Boston,  named  Wheatley,  went  to  the  slave-market,  in  that  city,  in  1761,  to 
purchase  a  child-negress,  that  she  might  rear  her  to  be  a  faithful  nurse  in  the 
old  age  of  her  mistress.  She  saw  many  plump  children,  but  one  of  delicate 
frame,  modest  demeanor,  and  clad  in  nothing  but  a  piece  of  dirty  carpet  wrapped 
about  her,  attracted  her  attention,  and  Mrs.  Wheatley  took  her  home  in  her 
chaise,  and  gave  her  the  name  of  Phillis.  The  child  seemed  to  be  about  seven 
years  of  age,  and  exhibited  remarkable  intelligence,  and  apt  imitative  powers. 
Mrs.  Wheatley's  daughter  taught  the  child  to  read  and  write,  and  her  progress 
was  wonderful.  She  appeared  to  have  very  little  recollection  of  her  birth-place, 
but  remembered  seeing  her  mother  pour  out  water  before  the  sun  at  its  rising. 
With  the  development  of  her  intellectual  faculties  her  moral  nature  kept  pace ; 
and  she  was  greatly  beloved  by  all  who  knew  her  for  her  amiability  and  perfect 
docility.  She  soon  attracted  the  attention  of  men  of  learning ;  and  as  Phillis 

11* 


250  PHILLIS   WHEATLEY. 

read  books  with  great  avidity,  they  supplied  her.  Piety  was  a  ruling  sentiment 
in  her  character,  and  tears  born  of  gratitude  to  God  and  her  kind  mistress,  often 
moistened  her  eyes.  As  she  grew  to. womanhood  her  thoughts  found  expression 
through  her  pen,  sometimes  in  prose  but  more  frequently  in  verse ;  and  she  was 
often  an  invited  guest  in  the  families  of  the  rich  and  learned,  in  Boston.  Her 
mistress  treated  her  as  a  child,  and  was  extremely  proud  of  her.1 

At  the  age  of  about  sixteen  years  (1770)  Phillis  became  a  member  of  the 
"  Old  South  Church,"  then  under  the  charge  of  Dr.  Sewall;  and  it  was  at  about 
this  time  that  she  wrote  the  poem  from  which  the  above  is  an  extract.  Earlier 
than  this  she  had  written  poems,  remarkable  for  both  vigor  of  thought  and  pathos 
in  expression.  Her  memory,  in  some  particulars,  appears  to  have  been  extremely 
defective.  If  she  composed  a  poem,  in  the  night,  and  did  not  write  it  down,  it 
would  be  gone  from  her,  forever,  in  the  morning.  Her  kind  mistress  gave  her 
a  light  and  writing  materials  at  her  bed-side,  that  she  might  lose  nothing,  and  in 
cold  weather  a  fire  was  always  made  in  her  room,  at  night.  In  the  Summer  of 
1773,  her  health  gave  way,  and  a  sea-voyage  was  recommended.  She  accom- 
panied a  son  of  Mr.  Wheatley,  to  England,  and  there  she  was  cordially  received 
by  Lady  Huntingdon,  Lord  Dartmouth,  and  other  people  of  distinction.  While 
there,  her  poems,  which  had  been  collected  and  dedicated  to  the  Countess  of 
Huntingdon,  were  published,  and  attracted  great  attention.  The  book  was  em- 
bellished with  a  portrait  of  her,  from  which  our  picture  was  copied.  She  was 
persuaded  to  remain  in  London  until  the  return  of  the  court,  so  as  to  be  presented 
to  the  king,  but,  hearing  of  the  declining  health  of  her  mistress,  she  hastened 
home.  That  kind  friend  was  soon  laid  in  the  grave,  and  Phillis  grieved  as  deeply 
as  any  of  her  children.  Mr.  Wheatley  died  soon  afterward,  and  then  his  excel- 
lent daughter  was  laid  by  the  side  of  her  parents.  Phillis  was  left  destitute,  and 
the  sun  of  her  earthly  happiness  went  down.  A  highly-intelligent  colored  man, 
of  Boston,  named  Peters,  offered  himself  in  marriage  to  the  poor  orphan,  and 
was  accepted.  He  proved  utterly  unworthy  of  the  excellent  creature  he  had 
wedded,  and  her  lot  became  a  bitter  one,  indeed.  She  and  her  husband  went 
to  the  interior  of  the  State,  to  live,  for  awhile,  and  then  returned  to  Boston. 
Misfortune  seems  to  have  expelled  her  muse,  for  we  have  no  production  of  her 
pen  bearing  a  later  date  than  those  in  her  volume  published  in  1773,  except  a 
poetical  epistle  to  General  Washington,  in  177 5,2  and  a  few  scraps  written  at  about 
that  time.  A  few  years  of  misery  shattered  the  golden  bowl  of  her  life,  and,  in 
a  filthy  apartment,  in  an  obscure  part  of  Boston,  that  gifted  wife  and  mother, 
whose  youth  had  been  passed  in  ease  and  even  luxury,  was  allowed  to  perish, 
alone !  Her  spirit  took  wing  on  the  5th  of  December,  1 794,  when  she  was  about 
forty-one  years  of  age. 

1.  On  one  occasion,  Phillis  was  from  home  on  a  visit,  and,  as  the  weather  was  inclement,  her  mistress 
sent  one  of  her  slaves,  with  a  chaise,  after  her.     Prince  took  his  seat  beside  Phillis.     As  they  drew  up 
to  the  house,  and  their  mistress  saw  them,  the  good  woman  indignantly  exclaimed,  "  Do  but  look  at 
the  saucy  varlet — if  he  has  not  the  impudence  to  sit  upon  the  same  seat  with  Phillis  !"    And  she 
severely  reprimanded  Prince  for  forgetting  the  dignity  of  Phillis. 

2.  Phillis'  letter  was  dated  the  26th  of  October,  1775.    Washington  answered  it  on  the  28th  of  February, 
1776,  as  follows.     His  letter  was  written  at  his  head-quarters,  at  Cambridge  : 

"  Miss  PHILLIS,— Your  favor  of  the  26th  of  October  did  not  reach  my  hands  till  the  middle  of  Decem- 
ber. Time  enough,  you  will  say,  to  have  given  an  answer  ere  this.  Granted.  But  a  variety  of  import- 
ant occurrences,  continually  interposing  to  distract  the  mind  and  withdraw  the  attention,  I  hope  will 
apologize  for  the  delay,  and  plead  my  excuse  for  the  seeming,  but  not  real  neglect.  I  thank  you  most 
sincerely  for  your  polite  notice  of  me  in  the  elegant  lines  you  inclosed  ;  and  however  undeserving  I  may 
be  of  such  encomium  and  panegyric,  the  style  and  manner  exhibit  a  striking  proof  of  your  poetical 
talents  ;  in  honor  of  which,  and  a"s  a  tribute  justly  due  to  you,  I  would  have  published  the  poem,  had  I 
not  been  apprehensive  that,  while  I  only  meant  to  give  the  world  this  new  instance  of  your  genius,  I 
might  have  incurred  the  imputation  of  vanity.  This,  and  nothing  else,  determined  me  not  to  give  it  a 
place  in  the  public  prints.  If  you  should  ever  come  to  Cambridge,  or  near  head-quarters,  I  shall  to 
happy  to  see  a  person  so  favored  by  the  Muses,  and  to  whom  nature  has  been  so  liberal  and  beneficent 
in  her  dispensations.  I  am,  with  great  respect,  your  obedient,  humble  servant, 

"  GEO.  WASHINGTON." 


CONRAD    WEISER. — ISAAC    SEARS. 


CONRAD    WEISEK. 

ONE  of  the  most  noted  agents  of  communication  between  the  white  men  and 
the  Indians,  was  Conrad  Weiser,  a  native  of  Germany,  who  came  to  Amer- 
ica in  early  life,  and  settled,  with  his  father,  in  the  present  Schoharie  county, 
New  York,  in  1713.  They  left  England,  in  1712,  and  were  seventeen  months 
on  their  voyage !  Young  Weiser  became  a  great  favorite  with  the  Iroquois 
Indians  in  the  Schoharie  and  Mohawk  Valleys,  with  whom  he  spent  much  of 
his  life.  Late  in  1714,  the  elder  Weiser,  and  about  thirty  other  families,  who 
had  settled  in  Schoharie,  becoming  dissatisfied  by  attempts  to  tax  them,  set 
out  for  Tulpehocken,  in  Pennsylvania,  by  way  of  the  Susquehanna  river,  and 
settled  there.  But  young  Weiser  was  enamored  of  the  free  life  of  the  savage. 
He  was  naturalized  by  them,  and  became  thoroughly  versed  in  the  languages 
of  the  whole  Six  Nations,  as  the  Iroquois  confederacy  in  New  York  were  called. 
He  became  confidential  interpreter  and  special  messenger  for  the  province  of 
Pennsylvania  among  the  Indians,  and  assisted  in  many  important  treaties.  The 
governor  of  Virginia  commissioned  him  to  visit  the  grand  council  at  Onondaga, 
in  1737,  and,  with  only  a  Dutchman  and  three  Indians,  ho  traversed  the  track- 
less forest  for  five  hundred  mile?,  for  that  purpose.  He  went  on  a  similar  mission 
from  Philadelphia  to  Shamokin  (Sunbury),  in  1744.  At  Reading  he  established 
an  Indian  agency  and  trading-house.  When  the  French  on  the  frontier  made 
hostile  demonstrations,  in  1755,  he  was  commissioned  a  colonel  of  a  volunteer 
regiment  from  Berks  county ;  and,  in  1758,  he  attended  the  great  gathering  of  the 
Indian  chiefs  in  council  with  white  commissioners,  at  Easton.  Such  was  the  affec- 
tion of  the  Indians  for  Weiser,  that  for  many  years  after  his  death  they  were  in 
the  habit  of  visiting  his  grave  and  strewing  flowers  thereon.  Mr.  Weiser's 
daughter  married  Henry  Melchoir  Muhlenburg,  D.D.,  the  founder  of  the  Lutheran 
Church,  in  America. 


ISAAC    SEARS. 

FEW  men  have  occupied  so  large  a  space  in  the  public  attention,  of  whom  so 
little  is  known,  as  Isaac  Sears,  one  of  the  great  leaders  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty, 
in  New  York,  previous  to  the  occupation  of  that  city  by  the  British,  in  1776. 
So  generally  was  he  regarded  as  the  bold  leader  in  popular  outbreaks,  that  he 
acquired  the  name  of  King  Sears,  by  which  title  he  is  better  known  than  by  his 
commercial  one  of  captain.  Of  him,  a  Loyalist  writer  in  Rivington's  Gazette 
wrote,  exultingly,  when  the  New  York  Assembly  yielded  to  ministerial  require- 
ments : 

"  And  FO,  my  good  master?,  I  find  it  ro  joke, 
For  YORK  has  stepp'd  forward  and  thrown  off  the  yoke 
Of  Congress,  committee*,  and  even  Kiixj  Fears, 
Who  shows  you  good  nature  by  showii  g  his  ears." 

Isaac  Sears  was  lineally  descended  from  one  of  the  earlier  settlers  in  Massa- 
chusetts, who  came  from  Colchester,  England,  in  1630.  He  was  born  at  Nor- 
walk,  Connecticut,  in  1729.  Of  his  youth  and  early  manhood  we  know  little, 
except  that  ho  was  a  mariner.  He  first  appeared  in  public  life  as  a  prominent 
member  of  the  association  called  Sons  of  Liberty,  in  1765,  when  he  was  a  suc- 
cessful merchant  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  a  sea-captain  of  note.  He  was 
the  chairman  of  the  first  Committee  of  Correspondence  appointed  by  the  citizens 
of  New  York,  in  1705,  and  had  for  his  colleagues  John  Lamb,  Gershom  Mott, 
William  Wiley,  and  Thomas  Robinson.  At  a  later  period,  he  was  wounded  in 


252  EDWARD  TELFAIR. 

an  affray  with  some  soldiers ;  and  in  every  enterprise  against  the  schemes  of 
government  officials  he  was  an  acknowledged  leader.  Early  in  the  Summer  of 
1775,  he  assisted  Lamb,  Willett,  M'Dougal,  and  others,  in  seizing  some  British 
stores  at  Turtle  Bay  (46th  Street,  and  East  River,  New  York) ;  and  in  August 
following,  he  led  a  party  of  citizens  to  assist  Captain  Lamb  in  removing  British 
cannons  from  the  battery  of  Fort  George,  at  the  foot  of  Broadway,  while  the 
Asia  vessel  of  war  was  hurling  round  shot  at  them  and  the  town.1  In  the 
Autumn  of  that  year  he  led  a  party  of  mounted  militia-men  from  Connecticut, 
who  destroyed  Rivington's  printing-press,  and  carried  off  his  type,  at  midday.2 

Although  Captain  Sears  continued  to  be  an  active  Whig  during  the  remainder 
of  the  Revolution,  we  do  not  find  his  name  in  connection  with  any  important 
event.  When  peace  came,  his  business  and  fortune  were  gone;  and,  in  1785, 
he  made  a  voyage  to  China,  as  a  supercargo,  being  a  partner  with  others  in  a 
commercial  venture.  Captain  Sears  was  very  ill  with  fever,  on  his  arrival  at 
Canton,  and  died  there,  on  the  28th  of  October,  1785,  at  the  age  of  almost  fifty- 
seven  years.  He  was  buried  upon  French  Island,  and  his  fellow-voyagers  placed 
a  slab,  with  a  suitable  inscription  upon  it,  over  his  grave. 


EDWARD    TEI.FAIR. 

MANY  of  the  leading  men  in  Georgia,  at  the  time  of  the  breaking  out  of  the 
Revolution,  were  of  Scotch  descent,  and,  unlike  the  settlers  from  the  same 
stock,  in  Eastern  North  Carolina,  they  were  generally  adherents  to  the  patriot 
cause.  Edward  Telfair  was  born  in  Scotland,  in  1735,  and  received  an  English 
education  at  the  grammar  school  of  Kirkcudbright,  on  the  domain  of  the  Earl 
of  Selkirk.3  lie  came  to  America  when  twenty -three  years  of  age,  and  resided 
some  time  in  Virginia,  as  agent  of  a  commercial  house.  From  thence  he  went 
to  Halifax,  on  the  Roanoke;  and,  in  1766,  made  his  residence  in  Savannah.  He 
was  one  of  the  earliest  and  most  efficient  promoters  of  the  rebellion  there,  and 
•was  one  of  the  leading  members  of  the  committee  of  safety,  in  1774.  With  a 
few  others  he  broke  open  the  provincial  magazine  and  secured  the  powder  for 
the  use  of  the  patriots ;  and  he  also  assisted  in  the  seizure  of  the  royal  governor, 
Sir  James  Wright.4  In  1778  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Continental  Con- 
gress ;  and  on  the  24th  of  July  of  that  year  he  signed  the  ratification  of  the 
Articles  of  Confederation.  He  continued  a  member  of  that  body  until  1783,  when 
he  was  appointed  a  commissioner  to  conclude  a  treaty  with  the  Cherokee  chiefs, 
by  which  the  boundary  line  between  their  nation  and  Georgia  was  determined. 
He  was  governor  of  Georgia,  first  in  1786,  and  then  from  1790  to  1793.  He 
had  the  honor  of  entertaining  President  Washington,  when  he  visited  Georgia, 
in  1791,  at  his  family  seat,  near  Augusta.  Governor  Telfair  died  at  Savannah, 
on  the  19th  of  September,  1807,  in  the  seventy-second  year  of  his  age.  He  was 
buried  with  military  honors. 

1.  One  of  the  buildings  injured  by  that  cannonade  was  the  tavern  of  Samuel  Fraunce,  commonly 
known  by  the  name  of  Black  Sam,  on  account  of  his  dark  complexion.    It  was  the  same  building  in 
which  Washington  had  his  final  parting  with  his  officers,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  and  for  many  years 
has  been  known  as  the  Broad  Street.  Hotel.     It  is  on  the  corner  of  Pearl  and  Broad  Streets.    In  allusion 
to  the  event,  Philip  Freneau  wrote,  in  his  Petition  of  Hugh  Gaine : 

"  At  first  we  supposed  it  was  only  a  sham, 
'Till  he  drove  a  round  ball  through  the  roof  of  Black  Sam." 

Two  of  the  cannons  removed  at  that  time  by  Alexander  Hamilton  and  some  of  his  college  associates, 
may  yet  [1855]  be  seen  at  the  entrance-gate  to  the  grounds  of  Columbia  College. 

2.  See  sketch  of  Rivington,  and  also  of  Bishop  Seabury. 

3.  See  sketch  of  John  Paul  Jones.  4.  See  sketch  of  Joseph  Habersham. 


AARON  BURR. 


253 


AARON    BURR. 

TN  this  country,  where  character  alone  is  the  accepted  standard  of  respectability, 
_L  and  where  the  shield  of  class  does  not  avert  the  odium  of  public  opinion 
from  the  openly  immoral  man,  let  his  birth  and  attainments  be  ever  so  exalted, 
there  is  necessarily  a  public  virtue  which  no  aspirant  for  honor  dare  neglect.  In 
this  sentiment  is  grounded  our  dearest  hopes  for  the  future  of  our  Republic ;  and 
however  melancholy  in  itself  the  spectacle  of  such  a  character  as  that  of  Aaron 
Burr  may  appear  to  the  eye  of  the  Christian  and  Patriot,  the  detestation  in  which 
it  is  held  is  a  confirmation  of  faith  in  that  public  virtue.  Burr  was  undoubtedly 
a  patriot,  and  possessed  many  noble  traits  of  character,  but  over  all  was  spread 
the  foul  slime  of  libertinism ;  and  he  who  might  have  shined  among  the  bright 
stars  of  our  country's  glory,  is,  in  a  degree,  a  "lost  pleiad," 

" Damned  (o  everlasting  fame." 

Aaron  Burr  was  the  son  of  the  pious  President  Burr,  of  the  College  at  Prince- 
ton, and  the  daughter  of  the  eminent  Jonathan  Edwards.  He  was  born  at 
Newark,  New  Jersey,  on  the  5th  of  February,  1756,  and  before  he  was  three 
years  of  age  he  lost  both  his  parents.  He  was  a  wayward  boy,  yet  full  of  in- 
tellectual promise.  At  twelve  years  of  age  he  entered  Princeton  College,  arid 
left  it  in  1772,  a  ripe  scholar  for  one  of  his  years,  and  the  recipient  of  academic 


254  JAMES  THACHEK. 


honors.  He  resolved  to  make  the  law  his  profession,  but  before  he  could  engage 
in  its  practice,  the  storm  of  the  Revolution  burst  upon  the  country,  and  he  joined 
the  Continental  army,  at  Cambridge.  Full  of  adventurous  spirit,  he  volunteered 
to  accompany  Arnold  through  the  wilderness,  to  Quebec.  There  he  was  made 
one  of  Montgomery's  aids,  and  was  with  that  officer  when  he  fell.  Soon  after 
that  he  entered  the  military  family  of  General  Washington,  from  which  he  was 
expelled  in  consequence  of  some  immoral  conduct  which  disgusted  the  com- 
mander-in-chief.  Burr  was  commissioned  a  lieutenant-colonel,  in  1777,  and  con- 
tinued in  active  service  until  1779,  when  failing  health  compelled  him  to  resign 
his  office.  He  had  already  acquired  an  unenviable  character  for  expertness  in 
intrigue ;  and  his  hostility  to  Washington  was  always  bitter  and  uncompromising. 

Burr  commenced  the  practice  of  law,  at  Albany,  in  1782,  and  soon  afterward 
removed  to  the  city  of  New  York,  where  he  became  distinguished  in  his  pro- 
fession. He  was  appointed  attorney-general  of  the  State,  in  1789;  and  from 
1791  to  1797,  he  was  a  member  of  the  United  States  Senate,  and  an  influential 
republican  leader,  in  that  body.  His  winning  manners  gave  him  wonderful  influ- 
ence. The  power  of  his  fascinations  over  the  other  sex  was  almost  unbounded 
and  he  used  it  for  the  basest  purposes.  As  a  politician  he  was  artful  and  intrig- 
uing ;  and  he  managed  so  adroitly  for  himself,  that  he  received  for  the  office  of 
President  of  the  United  States,  in  1800,  the  same  number  of  votes  as  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son, the  head  and  founder  of  the  Republican  party.  Congress  decided  in  favor 
of  Jefferson,  after  thirty-six  ballotings,  and  Burr  was  declared  Vice-President, 
according  to  usage  in  the  early  days  of  the  Republic. 

Burr  was  the  bitter  enemy  of  all  Federalists;  and,  in  1804,  he  managed  to 
draw  Alexander  Hamilton  into  a  duel,  which  became  the  terrible  result  of  a 
political  quarrel.  Burr  murdered  Hamilton,1  and  ever  afterward  society  put  the 
mark  of  Cain  upon  him.  Two  years  afterwards  he  was  engaged  in  forming  an 
expedition  in  the  western  country,  professedly  to  invade  Mexico.  It  was  sus- 
pected that  Burr  intended  to  attempt  a  severance  of  the  Western  from  the 
Eastern  States,  and  make  himself  president  of  the  former.  He  was  arrested  on 
a  charge  of  high  treason,  tried  at  Richmond,  in  Yirginia,  in  1807,  and  acquitted. 
He  passed  the  remainder  of  his  life  in  comparative  obscurity  and  almost  total 
neglect.  Profligate  and  unscrupulous  until  the  last,  that  wretched  man,  whose 
libertinism  had  carried  desolation  into  many  households,  went  down  into  the 
grave, 

"  Unwept,  unhonored,  and  unsung  ;" 

a  warning  to  all.  He  died  on  Staten  Island,  near  New  York,  on  the  14th  of 
September,  1836,  at  the  age  of  eighty  years. 


JAMES    THACHER. 

ONE  of  the  latest  survivors  of  the  medical  staff  of  the  Continental  army,  was 
James  Thacher,  M.D.,  whose  interesting  Journal,  kept  during  the  entire 
war,  was  published  in  1827,  and  is  regarded  as  standard  authority  in  relation  to 
matters  of  which  it  treats.  James  Thacher  was  born  at  Barnstable,  Massa- 
chusetts, in  1754.  He  studied  medicine  in  his  native  town,  under  Dr.  Abner 
Hersey,  and  was  prepared  to  enter  upon  the  practice  of  his  profession,  "  at  the 

1.  The  friends  of  both  parties  endeavored,  in  vain,  to  settle  the  dispute  without  recourse  to  arms,  but 
Burr  seemed  resolved  on  taking  the  life  of  Hamilton.  He  exacted  such  concessions  and  humiliating 
terms  of  compromise,  as  he  knew  no  man  of  honor  would  agree  to.  Hamilton  fired  his  pistol  in  the  air, 
while  Burr,  with  fatal  aim,  sent  a  bullet  with  the  errand  of  death.  It  was  a  foul  murder. 


D.D.  255 

precise  time,"  he  says,  when  he  found  his  country  "about  to  be  involved  in  all 
the  horrors  of  a  civil  war."  In  July,  1775,  when  only  twenty-one  years  of  age, 
he  went  to  the  Massachusetts  Provincial  Congress,  at  Watertown,  and  solicited 
the  appointment  of  assistant  hospital  surgeon,  at  Cambridge.  With  nine  others 
he  received  the  coveted  appointment,  and  he  continued  in  active  duty  in  the 
hospital  and  camp  until  the  capture  of  Cornwallis,  at  Yorktown.  It  was  under 
his  directions  that  the  general  inoculation  of  the  American  army  for  the  small- 
pox was  performed,  at  its  encampment  in  the  Hudson  Highlands,  opposite  West 
Point,  in  the  Spring  of  1781.  In  his  Journal,  Dr.  Thacher  says,  "  All  the  soldiers, 
with  the  women  and  children,  who  have  not  had  the  small-pox,  are  now  under 
inoculation.1  ....  Of  five  hundred  who  have  been  inoculated  here,  four 
only  have  died."2  He  then  mentions  the  interesting  medical  fact,  that  an  ex- 
tract of  butternut,  made  by  boiling  down  the  inner  bark  of  that  tree,  was  very 
successfully  substituted  for  the  usual  doses  of  calomel  and  jalap  employed  to 
reduce  the  system.  He  found  it  to  be  more  efficacious  and  less  dangerous  than 
the  mineral  drug.  He  adds,  concerning  remedies  found  on  our  soil,  "  The  butter- 
nut is  the  only  cathartic  deserving  of  confidence  which  we  have  yet  discovered." 
Dr.  Thacher  made  his  profession  his  life-vocation,  after  the  war ;  and  he  enjoyed 
the  honors  and  veneration  due  to  a  faithful  patriot  in  that  struggle,  for  more 
than  sixty  years  after  the  eventful  scenes  at  Yorktown.  He  wrote  several  medical 
works,  and  also  a  History  of  Plymouth.  His  Medical  Biography  is  a  work  of 
much  value.  Through  life  he  indulged  an  antiquarian  taste ;  and  during  his 
long  residence  in  the  elder  town  of  New  England,  he  was  a  warm  friend  of  the 
Pilgrim  Society  there.  He  died  at  Plymouth,  on  the  24th  of  May,  1844,  at  the 
age  of  ninety  years. 


JAMES    MADISON,    D.D. 

THE  first  Bishop  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  Virginia,  was  James 
Madison,  a  native  of  Rockingham  county,  in  that  State,  and  for  many  years 
president  of  William  and  Mary  College.  He  was  born  near  Port  Republic,  on 
the  27th  of  August,  1749.  His  early  education  was  acquired  at  an  academy  in 
Maryland;  and,  in  1768,  he  entered  William  and  Mary  College,  as  a  student. 
He  was  graduated  in  1772,  and  in  addition  to  other  collegiate  honors,  he  received 
the  gold  medal  assigned  by  Lord  Botetourt  as  a  prize  for  the  encouragement  of 
classical  literature.  On  leaving  the  college,  young  Madison  commenced  the 
study  of  law  under  the  afterward  celebrated  Chancellor  Wythe,  and  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar,  but  lie  felt  called  to  the  gospel  ministry,  and  prepared  himself 
for  its  duties.  He  visited  England,  and  received  priest's  orders ;  and  on  his 
return,  in  1773,  he  was  chosen  Professor  of  Mathematics  in  William  and  Mary 
College.  When  only  twenty-eight  years  of  age  (1777),  he  was  chosen  president 
of  that  institution,  and  then  again  visited  England  to  become  better  instructed 
in  those  acquirements  which  his  station  demanded.  He  returned  in  1778,  and  then 
"commenced  that  long  career  of  usefulness,  which  entitles  him  to  be  considered 
as  one  of  the  greatest  benefactors  of  Virginia."  In  1784,  he  resigned  his  Professor- 
ship of  Mathematics,  and  became  Professor  of  Natural  and  Moral  Philosophy, 
and  International  Law.  These  and  the  presidency  he  retained  until  his  death. 
Until  1776,  the  Church  of  England  had  been  the  established  religion  in  Vir- 
ginia. That  year  the  Virginia  Assembly  repealed  all  laws  requiring  conformity 

1.  Pee  note  2,  page  61. 

55.  There  was  also  a  partial  inoculation  of  the  troops  stationed  at  Morristown,  in  New  Jersey. 


256  ABRAHAM   BALDWIN. 

thereto.  There  had  never  been  a  resident  Bishop  in  Virginia.  At  a  convention 
held  in  Richmond,  in  1785,  presided  over  by  Dr.  Madison,  the  subject  of  a  res- 
ident Bishop  was  considered ;  and  the  following  year  Rev.  Dr.  Griffith  was  re- 
quested to  proceed  to  England,  with  White  and  Provost,  and  receive  consecra- 
tion. Circumstances  prevented  his  going;  and,  in  IT 90,  Dr.  Madison  was  elected 
to  fill  the  episcopate.  He  was  consecrated  at  Lambeth,  in  September  of  that 
year.  Bishop  Madison  made  his  first  episcopal  visitation  in  1792.  Although  he 
labored  with  as  much  energy  in  the  cause  of  his  church,  as  a  naturally  feeble 
constitution  and  his  college  duties  would  allow,  it  continually  declined,  and  be- 
came almost  extinct.  Many  beautiful  church  edifices,  built  before  the  Revolu- 
tion, are  now  melancholy  monuments  of  the  decay  of  episcopacy  in  Virginia. 
The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  there  was  finally  revived  under  the  evangelical 
labors  of  Bishop  Moore,  and  is  now  in  a  flourishing  condition. 

Bishop  Madison  continued  to  discharge  the  duties  of  his  offices  in  William  and 
Mary  College  after  his  occupation  in  the  episcopal  field  was  almost  ended.  He 
died  on  the  6th  of  March,  1812,  at  the  age  of  about  sixty-two  years.  Bishop 
Madison  was  an  eminently  literary  man,  and  devout  Christian  professor.  His 
remains  are  beneath  a  marble  monument  in  the  Chapel  Hall  of  the  Institution 
he  so  much  loved  and  cherished. 


ABRAHAM    BALDWIN. 

WE  have  but  slight  records  on  the  page  of  history  of  Abraham  Baldwin,  a 
brother-in-law  of  Joel  Barlow,  and,  in  many  respects,  one  of  the  most 
useful  of  men.  He  was  a  native  of  Connecticut,  but  became  an  honored  and 
much-beloved  adopted  citizen  of  the  State  of  Georgia.  He  was  born  in  1754, 
and  was  graduated  at  Yale  College  at  the  age  of  about  eighteen  years.  From 
1775  until  1779,  he  was  a  tutor  in  that  institution,  and  was  one  of  the  most 
eminent  of  the  classical  and  mathematical  scholars  of  that  day.  While  teaching, 
he  studied  law,  was  admitted  to  practice,  and  then  removed  to  Savannah.  There 
he  was  admitted  to  the  Georgia  bar,  and  took  an  exalted  position  at  once. 
Within  three  months  after  his  arrival  in  Georgia,  he  was  elected  a  member  of 
the  State  legislature.  Being  an  ardent  friend  of  education,  he  originated  a  plan 
for  a  university,  drew  up  a  charter  by  which  it  should  be  endowed  with  forty 
thousand  acres  of  land,  and  with  the  aid  of  John  Milledge,  procured  the  sanction 
of  the  legislature.  The  college,  known  as  the  University  of  Georgia,  was  located 
at  Athens,  and  Josiah  Meigs  was  appointed  its  first  president. 

Mr.  Baldwin  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  Congress,  in  1786,  and  the  following 
year  he  was  chosen  to  represent  Georgia,  with  Colonel  William  Few  as  his  col- 
league, in  the  convention  that  framed  the  Federal  Constitution.  He  was  con- 
tinued a  member  of  Congress  for  ten  years  after  the  organization  of  the  new 
government,  when,  in  1799,  he  and  his  friend  Milledge  were  chosen  United 
States  Senators.  He  occupied  that  exalted  position  until  his  death,  which  oc- 
curred at  Washington  city,  on  the  4th  of  March,  1807,  when  he  was  about  fifty- 
three  years  of  age.  His  remains  were  placed  by  the  side  of  those  of  his  friend, 
General  James  Jackson,  in  the  Congressional  burying-ground.  Mr.  Baldwin 
was  never  married.  His  father  died  in  1787,  and  left  six  orphan  children,  half- 
brothers  and  sisters  of  Abraham.  With  the  tenderness  of  a  father  he  studied 
their  welfare,  and  used  his  ample  fortune  in  educating  them  all.  They  enjoyed 
his  protection  and  aid  until  all  were  established  for  themselves  in  life-pursuits. 
A  truly  good  man  was  lost  to  earth,  when  Abraham  Baldwin  died. 


DEWITT   CLINTON. 


DEWITT    CLINTON. 

TTEERE  are  men  whose  forecast  reaches  far  in  advance  of  their  generation,  and 
JL  whose  sagacity  works  wonders  for  posterity.  These  are  laughed  at  as  idle 
dreamers  by  the  many,  and  venerated  as  philosophers  and  prophets  by  the  few. 
Such  was  Dewitt  Clinton,  a  son  of  James  Clinton,  a  useful  brigadier-general  of 
the  Eevolution,  who  was  born  at  Little  Britain,  in  Orange  county,  New  York, 
on  the  2d  of  March,  1769.  He  graduated  at  Columbia  College,  in  1786,  became  a 
lawyer,  then  private  Secretary  to  his  uncle,  George  Clinton,  the  first  Republican 
governor  of  New  York,  and  then  a  State  Senator,  in  1799.  Even  at  this  early 
period  of  his  public  life,  his  efforts  were  directed  to  the  elevation  of  his  fellow- 
men.  Throughout  his  long  political  career  he  was  the  earnest  and  steadfast  friend 
of  education,  and  the  rights  of  man.  His  powerful  mind  was  brought  to  bear  with 
great  vigor  upon  the  subject  of  legislative  aid  in  furtherance  of  popular  educa- 
tion, and  also  the  abolition  of  human  slavery  in  the  State  of  New  York.  In 
1801,  he  was  appointed  to  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  was 
annually  elected  mayor  of  the  city  of  New  York,  from  1803  to  1815,  except  in 
1807  and  1810.  Some  of  the  noblest  institutions  for  the  promotion  of  art,  liter- 
ature, science,  and  benevolence,  in  that  city,  were  founded  under  his  auspices.1 


1.  The  chief  of  these  wero  the  New  York  Historical  Society,  the  Academy  of  Arts,  and  the  Orphan 
Asylum.     See  sketch  of  Isabella  Graham. 


258  J3DANUS  BURKE. 


He  was  an  unsuccessful  candidate  for  the  office  of  President  of  the  United  States, 
in  1812;  and,  in  1815,  he  withdrew  from  public  life. 

Mr.  Clinton  was  one  of  the  earliest  and  most  efficient  supporters  of  Jesse 
Hawley's  magnificent  scheme  for  uniting  Lake  Erie  with  the  Hudson  river  by  a 
canal,  first  promulgated  by  that  gentleman,  in  1807 ;  and,  in  1817,  Mr.  Clinton 
having  been  called  from  his  retirement  into  public  life  again,  was  chiefly  instru- 
mental in  procuring  the  passage  of  a  law  for  constructing  the  great  Erie  Canal, 
at  an  estimated  cost  of  five  millions  of  dollars.  He  was  elected  governor  of  his 
State,  and  for  three  years,  while  holding  that  office,  he  brought  all  his  official 
influence  to  bear  in  favor  of  two  grand  projects — the  establishment  of  a  literature 
fund,  and  the  construction  of  the  canal.  A  strong  party  was  arrayed  against 
him,  and  many  denounced  tho  scheme  of  making  a  canal  three  hundred  and 
sixty-three  miles  in  length,  as  that  of  an  insane  mind.  He  and  his  friends  per- 
severed; and,  in  1825,  that  great  work  was  completed.  The  event  was  cele- 
brated throughout  the  State  by  orations,  processions,  bonfires,  and  illuminations, 
and  soon  the  madman  was  extolled  as  a  wise  benefactor.  He  was  again  elected 
governor  of  his  State,  by  an  overwhelming  majority.  In  1826,  he  declined  the 
honor  of  ambassador  to  England,  offered  him  by  President  Adams,  and  was 
reflected  governor.  He  now  strongly  urged  a  change  in  the  State  Constitution 
(since  effected),  so  as  to  allow  universal  suffrage  at  elections.  "While  in  tho 
midst  of  his  popularity  and  usefulness,  he  died  suddenly,  at  Albany,  on  the  llth 
of  February,  1828,  at  the  age  of  fifty-nine  years.  Mr.  Clinton  was  a  fine  writer, 
a  good  speaker,  and  an  industrious  seeker  after  knowledge  of  every  kind.  Some 
of  his  essays  and  addresses  are  choice  specimens  of  composition,  embodying  deep 
thought  and  clear  logic.  His  enduring  monument  is  the  Erie  Canal,  whose  bosom 
has  borne  sufficient  food  to  appease  the  hunger  of  the  whole  earth,  and  poured 
millions  of  treasure  into  the  coffers  of  the  State. 


BURKE. 

THE  honest  heart,  jolly  wit,  and  varied  accomplishments  of  Judge  Burke,  of 
South  Carolina,  are  matters  of  historic  record,  and  cannot  be  forgotten.  Ho 
was  a  native  of  Galway,  Ireland,  where  he  was  born  about  the  year  1743.  At 
the  commencement  of  the  American  Eevolution,  he  came  to  fight  for  liberty,  for 
he  was  a  democrat  of  truest  stamp.  His  heart  was  filled  with  the  sentiment, 
"  Where  liberty  dwells,  there  is  my  country."  He  made  his  abode  in  Charleston, 
and  was  active  in  the  early  military  events  in  that  vicinity.  He  was  a  lawyer 
by  profession,  and  considering  his  services  more  valuable  in  civil  than  in  military 
affairs,  the  provincial  legislature  appointed  him  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  newly-organized  State,  in  1778.  When  Charleston  fell,  and  the  South  lay 
prostrate  at  the  feet  of  British  power,  in  1780,  Judge  Burke  took  a  commission 
in  the  army.  He  resumed  the  judicial  office  when  the  Republicans  regained 
the  State,  early  in  1782.  He  was  opposed  to  the  Federal  Constitution,  because 
he  feared  consolidated  power,  yet  he  served  as  the  first  United  States  Senator 
from  South  Carolina,  under  that  instrument.  His  Federalist  friends  told  him 
that  he  had  been  sent  to  see  that  the  corruptions  and  abuses  which  he  had  pre- 
dicted should  not  be  practiced.  He  had  already  made  his  name  conspicuous  by 
his  published  essay  against  some  of  the  aristocratic  features  of  tho  Cincinnati 
Society ;  and  while  in  Congress  he  was  the  favorite  friend  of  Aaron  Burr.  He  after- 
ward became  Chancellor  of  the  State  of  North  Carolina,  Wit,  humor,  and  convivi- 
ality, were  his  distinguishing  social  characteristics.  The  former  were  ever  visible 


JOHN  TKUMBULL.  259 


whether  ho  was  on  the  bench  or  in  the  drawing-room ;  while  the  latter  finally 
became  such  a  habit  that  he  was  its  slave,  lie  lived  a  bachelor,  and  was  the 
soul  of  every  dinner-party,  whether  abroad  or  at  his  own  house.  Inebriation 
finally  clouded  his  intellect,  and  at  length  his  body  became  excessively  dropsical. 
On  one  occasion,  when  his  physician  had  "tapped"  him,  and  while  the  water 
was  flowing  freely,  the  judge  coolly  observed,  "I  wonder  where  all  that  water 
can  come  from,  as  I  am  sure  that  I  never  drank  as  much  since  I  arrived  at  years 
of  discretion."  On  being  assured  by  one  of  his  friends  that  he  would  be  better 
after  the  operation,  he  replied,  "Nothing  in  my  house  is  better  after  being 
tapped.'1'1  His  levity  continued  until  his  last  moments,  and  he  died  as  "  the  fool 
dieth "  because  he  had  "lived  as  the  fool  liveth."  He  was  one  of  many  sad 
examples  which  young  men  of  talent  should  study  as  warnings.  He  died  at 
Charleston,  on  the  30th  of  March,  1802,  at  the  age  of  fifty-nine  years,  and  was 
buried  in  the  grave-yard  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  near  Jacksonborough.1 


JOHN    T  RUM  BULL. 

THE  name  of  Trumbull  is  identified  with  the  history  of  New  England,  in  various 
ways.  We  have  already  given  sketches  of  the  governor  and  the  artist,  of 
that  name ;  we  will  now  consider  Trumbull  the  poet.  Ho  was  born  in  Water- 
town,  New  Haven  county,  Connecticut,  on  the  24th  of  April,  1750.  He  was  an 
only  son,  delicate  in  physical  constitution,  and  a  favorite  of  his  accomplished 
mother.  He  was  an  exceedingly  precocious  child,  and  at  the  age  of  seven  years 
was  considered  qualified  to  enter  Yale  College,  as  a  student.  There  he  was 
graduated,  in  1767,  with  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts,  and  remained  a  student 
three  years  longer.  He  turned  his  attention  chiefly  to  polite  literature,  as  well 
as  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics,  and  became  a  most  accomplished  scholar.  Ho 
and  Timothy  Dwight  became  intimate  friends,  and  the  bond  of  mutual  attach- 
ment was  severed  only  by  death.  They  were  co-essayists,  in  1769 ;  and,  in  1771, 
they  were  both  appointed  tutors  in  the  college.  The  following  year  young 
Trumbull  published  the  first  part  of  a  poem  entitled  The  Progress  of  Dulness. 
He  selected  the  law  as  his  profession,  and  devoted  much  of  his  leisure  time  to 
its  study.  He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1773,  but.  immediately  afterward  went 
to  Boston,  and  placed  himself  under  the  instruction  of  John  Adams.  He  com- 
menced the  practice  of  law  at  Hartford,  in  1781,  and  soon  became  distinguished 
for  legal  acumen  and  forensic  eloquence.  During  his  residence  in  Boston,  he 
had  conceived  the  idea  of  a  satirical  poem,  in  which  the  British  and  Tories  should 
figure  conspicuously;  and,  in  1782,  his  M'Fingalwas  completed,  and  published 
at  Hartford.  Ho  was  soon  afterward  associated  with  Humphreys,  Barlow,  and 
Dr.  Lemuel  Hopkins,  in  the  production  of  a  work  which  they  styled  The  Anar- 
chiad.  It  contained  bold  satire,  and  exerted  considerable  influence  on  the  pop- 
ular taste. 

In  1789,  Mr.  Trumbull  was  appointed  State  Attorney  for  the  county  of  Hart- 
ford; and,  in  1792,  ho  represented  that  district  in  the  Connecticut  legislature. 
His  health  failed;  and,  in  1795,  he  resigned  his  office,  and  declined  all  public 
business.  Toward  the  close  of  1798,  a  severe  illness  formed  the  crisis  of  his 

1.  Many  anecdotes  are  preserved  concerning  Judge  Burke's  absent-mindedness.  It  was  the  custom 
for  the  judges  in  Charleston,  during  the  sessions,  to  leave  their  gowns  at  a  dry -goods  store  near  the  court- 
house, when  they  went  to  their  meals.  The  owner  of  this  store  was  Miss  Van  Rhyn,  a  middle-aged 
maiden  lady,  who  carefully  hung  the  judicial  robes  upon  pegs  where  her  own  clothing  was  suspended. 
On  one  occasion,  Judge  Burke  took  down  his  robe  (as  he  supposed)  hastily,  went  with  it  under  his  arm, 
and  proceeded  to  array  himself  preparatory  to  the  opening  of  the  court.  He  found  much  difficulty  in 
getting  it  on,  when  all  at  once  he  exclaimed,  before  an  audience  uproarious  with  laughter,  "Before God, 
I  have  got  into  Miss  Van  Rhyn's  petticoat !" 


260  STEPHEN  VAN  RENSSELAER. 

nervous  excitement,  and  after  that  his  health  was  much  better.  He  was  again 
elected  to  a  seat  in  the  State  legislature,  in  May,  1800,  and  the  following  year 
he  was  appointed  a  judge  of  the  Superior  Court  of  Connecticut.  From  that  time 
he  abandoned  party  politics,  as  inconsistent  with  judicial  duties.  In  1808,  he 
was  appointed  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Errors.  In  1820,  he  revised  his 
works,  and  they  were  published  in  Hartford,  in  handsome  style,  by  S.  G.  Good- 
rich, now  [1854]  American  consul  at  Paris.  He  received  a  handsome  compen- 
sation for  them.  He  and  his  wife  afterward  went  to  Detroit,  and  made  their 
abode  with  a  son-in-law.  There  Judge  Trumbull  died,  on  the  10th  of  May,  1831, 
at  the  age  of  eighty-one  years. 


STEPHEN    VAN   RENSSELAER. 

THIFTH  in  lineal  descent  from  Killian  Van  Rensselaer,  the  earliest  and  best 
JL  known  of  the  American  Patroons*  was  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer,  one  of  the 
best  men  of  his  time,  in  the  highest  sense  of  that  term.  He  was  born  at  the 
manor-house,  near  Albany,  New  York,  on  the  1st  of  November,  1764.  He  was 
the  eldest  son,  and  inherited  the  immense  manorial  estates  of  his  father,  known 
as  the  Patroon  Lands.  That  parent  died  when  Stephen  was  quite  young,  and 
the  boy  and  the  estate  were  placed  under  the  supervision  of  guardians,  one  of 
whom  was  Philip  Livingston,  his  maternal  grandfather.  Born  to  a  princely 
fortune  and  highest  social  station  in  the  New  World,  young  Van  Rensselaer 
was  educated  accordingly.  He  was  a  student  in  the  college* at  Princeton,  for 
some  time,  and  completed  his  education  at  Harvard  University,  where  he  was 
graduated  in  1782.  The  "War  for  Independence  had  just  closed  when  he  at- 
tained his  majority,  but  the  conflicts  of  opinion  respecting  the  establishment  of  a 
new  government  had  yet  to  be  waged.  In  these  discussions  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer 
took  a  decided  and  active  part,  and  he  was  repeatedly  elected  to  a  seat  in  the 
New  York  Assembly.  He  was  a  warm  supporter  of  the  Federal  Constitution, 
and  battled  manfully  for  it  and  the  administration  of  "Washington,  side  by  side 
with  Hamilton,  Jay,  and  Madison.  In  1795,  he  was  elected  lieutenant-governor 
of  his  native  State,  when  John  Jay  was  chief  magistrate,  and  he  held  that  sta- 
tion six  years.  His  friends  predicted  for  him,  a  brilliant  official  career,  but  the 
defeat  of  the  Federal  party,  in  1800,  and  the  continued  ascendency  of  the  Re- 
publican, closed  his  way  to  distinction  through  the  mazes  of  political  warfare. 

When  war  was  declared  against  Great  Britain,  in  1812,  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer, 
bearing  the  commission  of  a  major-general,  was  placed,  by  Governor  Tompkins, 
in  command  of  the  New  York  militia,  destined  for  the  defence  of  the  northern 
frontier.  Those  were  a  part  of  his  troops,  under  General  Solomon  Van  Rensselaer, 
who  assisted  in  the  battle  at  Queenstown.  After  the  war,  General  Van  Rensselaer 
was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Federal  Congress,  where  he  served  his  country  dur- 
ing several  consecutive  sessions.  By  his  casting-vote  in  the  delegation  of  New 
York,  he  gave  the  presidency  of  the  United  States  to  John  Quincy  Adams. 
With  that  session  closed  the  political  life  of  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer,  but  he  still 
labored  on  and  hoped  on  in  the  higher  sphere  of  duty  of  a  benevolent  Christian. 
Like  his  Master  whom  he  loved,  he  was  ever  "meek  and  lowly."  and  "went 

1.  To  encourage  the  emigration  of  an  agricultural  population  to  New  Netherland  fas  New  York  was 
originally  called),  the  Dutch  West  India  Company,  under  whose  auspices  the  province  was  founded, 
granted  to  certain  persons  who  should  lead  or  send  a  certain  number  of  families  to  make  a  settlement 
in  America,  large  tracts  of  land  with  specified  social  and  political  privileges.  Among  the  directors  of 
the  company  who  availed  themselves  of  the  offer,  was  Killian  Van  Rensselaer,  who  became  the  proprietor 
of  Rensselaerwick,  a  territory  in  the  vicinity  of  Albany  about  forty-eight  miles  long,  and  twenty- 
four  wide.  It  was  established  in  1637,  and  the  proprietor  was  called  a  Patroon,  or  patron  ;  a  name  de- 
rived from  the  civil  law  of  Rome,  which  was  given  to  owners  of  large  landed  estates. 


STEPHEN  VAN   RENSSELAER. 


261 


about  doing  good."  Frugal  in  personal  expenditures,  he  was  lavish,  yet  dis- 
criminating, in  his  numerous  benefactions.  He  did  not  wait  for  Misery  to  call 
at  his  door ;  he  sought  out  the  children  of  Want.  To  the  poor  and  the  ignorant 
he  was  a  blessing.  In  1824,  he  founded  a  seminary  for  the  purpose  of  "  quali- 
fying teachers  for  instructing  the  children  of  farmers  and  mechanics  in  the  ap- 
plication of  experimental  chemistry,  philosophy,  and  natural  history,  to  agricul- 
ture, domestic  economy,  the  arts,  and  manufactures."  He  liberally  endowed  it, 
and  the  "  Rensselaer  School"  is  a  perpetual  hymn  to  the  memory  and  praise  of 
its  benefactor.  In  the  cause  of  the  Bible,  Temperance,  and  every  social  and 
moral  reform,  Mr.  Van  Rensselaer's  time  and  money  were  freely  given ;  and  in 
these  labors  he  continued  until  death.  He  was  an  early  and  efficient  friend  of 
internal  improvements,  and,  on  the  death  of  Dewitt  Clinton,  he  was  appointed 
president  of  the  Board  of  Canal  Commissioners.  He  held  that  station  during  the 
remainder  of  his  life.  That  "good  citizen  and  honest  man"  died  on  the  26th  of 
January,  1840,  in  the  seventy-fifth  year  of  his  age. 


262          WASHINGTON  ALLSTON. — WILLIAM   MOULTEIE. 


WASHINQTON    ALI.STON. 

"VTO  man  ever  possessed  a  more  exquisite  appreciation  of  the  Beautiful,  than 
11  Washington  Allston,  one  of  the  most  gifted  of  painters,  and  yet  no  man 
ever  kept  the  Beautiful  in  more  severe  subordination  to  the  Good  and  True,  in 
the  productions  of  both  his  pencil  and  pen.  That  appreciation  made  him  shrink 
from  frequent  efforts  in  the  higher  department  of  his  art,  for  he  felt  the  impuis- 
sance  of  his  hand  in  the  delineations  of  the  glorious  visions  of  his  genius.  It  has 
been  well  observed  by  Professor  Shedd,  that  Allston  accomplished  so  little,  be- 
cause he  thought  so  much.  This  gifted  painter  and  poet  was  born  in  South 
Carolina,  in  1780,  and  was  educated  at  Harvard  College,  where  he  was  graduated 
in  the  year  1800.  His  genius  for  art  was  early  developed;  and,  in  1801,  he 
went  to  Europe,  to  study  the  works  of  the  best  masters  there.  He  remained 
abroad  eight  years,  and  enjoyed  the  friendship  of  the  most  distinguished  poets 
and  painters  of  England  and  the  Continent.  In  painting,  West,  Reynolds,  and 
Fuseli  were  his  instructors;  and  Wordsworth,  Southey,  and  Coleridge,  were  his 
chief  literary  companions.  No  private  American  ever  made  a  better  or  more 
lasting  impression  abroad,  than  Washington  Allston.  As  a  colorist,  he  was 
styled  the  American  Titian.  A  small  volume  of  his  poems  was  issued  in  London, 
in  1813 ;  and  in  later  productions  of  his  pen,  he  exhibited  a  power  in  writing 
elegant  prose,  surpassed  by  few.  But  he  is  chiefly  known  to  the  world  as  a 
painter,  and  as  such  posterity  will  speak  of  him.  His  chief  works  are  The  Dead 
Man  restored  to  Life  by  Elijah;  Elijah  in  the  Desert;  Jacob's  Dream;  The  Angel 
liberating  Peter  from  Prison ;  Saul  and  the  Witch  of  Endor ;  Uriel  in  the  Sun ; 
Gabriel  setting  the  Guard  of  the  Heavenly  Host ;  SpalaMs  Vision  of  the  Bloody 
Hand;  Anne  Page,  and  several  exquisite  smaller  works.  He  was  engaged  on 
his  greatest  work — Belshazzar's  Feast — when  his  final  sickness  fell  upon  him, 
and  he  was  not  permitted  to  finish  it.  It  exhibits  great  powers  of  intellect  and 
taste ;  and,  as  far  as  it  is  completed,  it  presents  the  embodiment  of  the  highest 
conceptions  of  true  genius.  Most  of  his  life  was  spent  at  Cambridge,  Massa- 
chusetts,'where  he  was  educated;  and  there  the  "  painter-poet  and  the  poet- 
painter  "  left  earth  for  the  sphere  of  Intelligence  and  Beauty,  on  the  9th  of  July, 
18-43,  when  in  tho  si^ty-fourth  year  of  his  age. 


MOULTIIIE. 

OEVERAL  of  those  who,  during  the  War  for  Independence,  acted  its  history, 
U  have  since  written  its  history,  and  the  truths  of  those  great  events  can 
never  be  obscured  by  the  fictions  of  posterity.  Among  those  who  have  played 
that  two-fold  part  in  the  drama  recorded  in  our  annals,  is  William  Moultrie, 
whose  valor  won  the  honor  of  having  the  fort  he  defended  bear  his  name.  He 
was  a  native  of  South  Carolina,  where  he  was  born,  in  1730.  He  was  descended 
from  one  of  that  Huguenot  company  of  which  Marion's  ancestor  was  a  member, 
and  inherited  the  patient  endurance,  courage,  and  love  of  liberty  of  that  per- 
secuted people.  History  first  notices  him  as  a  subaltern  in  an  expedition  against 
the  Cherokee  Indians,  in  1760,  under  the  command  of  Governor  Littleton.  He 
was  also  prominent  in  subsequent  expeditions  against  that  unhappy  people.  He 
was  active  in  civil  affairs  before  the  Revolution ;  and,  when  the  hour  for  decision 
in  that  matter  came,  he  was  found  in  the  ranks  of  the  patriots  as  a  military 
officer.  When,  early  in  the  Summer  of  1776,  a  strong  land  and  naval  force 


JOHN  LAMB.  263 


menaced  Charleston,  Moultrie,  bearing  the  commission  of  a  colonel,  took  com- 
mand of  Fort  Sullivan,  in  the  harbor,  and  bravely  defended  it  while  cannons  on 
British  war- vessels  were  pouring  an  incessant  storm  of  iron  upon  it.1  For  that 
gallant  defence  he  was  promoted  to  a  brigadier,  and  the  fort  was  named  Moultrie, 
in  his  honor.'2  From  that  time  until  the  fall  of  Charleston,  in  1780,  General 
Moultrio  was  one  of  the  most  efficient  of  the  Southern  officers,  on  the  field  of 
action,  or  as  a  disciplinarian  in  camp.  After  the  surrender  of  Charleston,  he  was 
kept  a  prisoner  in  the  vicinity,  for  awhile,  and  was  then  paroled  to  Philadelphia, 
where  he  remained  until  the  close  of  hostilities,  in  1782..  After  his  return  home 
he  was  chosen  governor  of  his  native  State,  and  was  repeatedly  reflected  to 
that  office.  His  integrity  as  a  statesman  and  public  officer  was  a  bright  example ; 
his  disinterestedness  was  beyond  all  praise.  His  fellow-citizens  honored  him 
with  truest  reverence,  and  his  intimate  acquaintances  loved  him  for  his  many 
private  virtues.  The  infirmities  of  age  at  length  admonished  him  to  retire  to 
private  life ;  and  in  domestic  repose  he  prepared  his  Memoirs  of  the  Revolution 
in  the  South,  which  were  published  in  two  octavo  volumes,  in  1802.  Like  a 
bright  sun  setting  without  an  obscuring  cloud,  the  hero  and  sage  descended 
peacefully  to  his  final  rest,  on  the  27th  of  September,  1805,  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
five  years. 


JOHN    LAMB. 

TVFIE  Sons  of  Liberty  in  New  York  were  distinguished  for  their  loyalty  to  re- 
1  publican  principles,  their  zeal  in  the  promotion  of  popular  freedom,  and 
their  boldness  in  every  hour  of  difficulty  and  danger.  Among  the  most  fearless 
of  those  early  patriots  wras  John  Lamb,  son  of  an  eminent  optician  and  mathe- 
matical instrument  maker.  He  was  born  in  the  city  of  New  York,  on  the  1st 
of  January,  1735.  He  received  a  good  common  education,  and  learned  the 
business  of  his  father.  He  abandoned  it  in  1760,  and  became  an  extensive  wine 
merchant.  Through  all  the  exciting  times  until  the  kindling  of  the  War  for 
Independence,  Mr.  Lamb  was  extensively  engaged  in  the  liquor  trade,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  was  one  of  the  most  active  politicians  of  the  day,  after  the  pass- 
age of  the  Stamp  Act  had  aroused  the  American  people.  He  spoke  French  and 
German  fluently,  was  a  good  scholar,  and  was  exceedingly  expert  in  the  use  of 
his  tongue  and  pen.  These  he  devoted  to  the  public  good.  On  one  occasion, 
in  1769,  when  an  inflammatory  hand-bill  had  called  "the  betrayed  inhabitants 
to  the  fields,"3  Lamb  harangued  the  multitude  in  seditious  words.  He  was  taken 
before  the  Legislative  Assembly  to  testify  concerning  the  authorship  of  the  hand- 
bill, but  was  soon  discharged.4  This  event  intensified  his  zeal,  and  he  continued 

1.  During  the  action,  a  cannon  ball  cut  the  American  flag-staff,  and  the  banner  fell  outside  of  the  fort. 
Sergeant  William  Jasper,  of  Moultrie's  regiment,  immediately  leaped  down  from  the  parapet,  picked  up 
the  flag  while  the  balls  were  falling  thick  and  fast,  coolly  fastened  it  to  a  sponge  staff,  and  unfurled  it 
again  over  the  bastion  of  the  fort.    For  this  daring  feat,  Governor  Rutledge  presented  Jasper  with  his 
own  sword,  the  next  day,  and  offered  him  a  lieutenant's  commission.    The  young  hero  modestly  re- 
fused it,  saying,  "  I  can  neither  read  nor  write  ;  I  am  not  fit  to  keep  officers'  company  ;  I  am  only  a 
sergeant." 

2.  On  the  day  when  the  enemy  departed  from  Charleston,  Mr*.  Bernard  Elliott  (a  niece  of  Mrs.  Rebecca 
Motte),  presented  General  Moultrie's  regiment  with  a  pair  of  elegant  silk  colors,  wrought  by  the  ladies 
«f  Charleston.    These  were  afterward  planted  upon  the  fortifications  at  Savannah,  when  Lincoln  and 
D'Kstaing  besieged  that  city,  in  October,  1779.     Both  the  young  officers  who  bore  them  were  killed. 
Sergeant  Jasper  was  there,  and,  seizing  one  of  them,  he  mounted  a  bastion,  when  he,  too,  was  killed 
by  a  bullet.    These  flags  were  surrendered  at  Charleston,  in  1780,  and  were  afterward  trophies  in  the 
Tower  of  London. 

3.  The  ground  now  oncnpied  by  the  City  Hall  and  its  surrounding  Park  was  called  "the  fields." 
There  a  "  Liberty  Pole  "  was  erected,  and  there  the  popular  assemblages  were  held. 

4.  The  hand-bill  was  written  by  Alexander  MacDougall,  afterward  a  general  in  the  Continental  army. 


264  RED  JACKET. 


to  be  an  accepted  political  leader  until  1775,  when  he  entered  the  artillery  ser- 
vice of  the  army,  with  the  commission  of  captain.  He  accompanied  Montgomery 
to  Quebec  at  the  close  of  that  year.  He  was  severely  wounded  there,  in  the 
cheek,  by  a  grape-shot,  and  was  made  prisoner.  Soon  after  that  he  was  pro- 
moted to  major,  and  appointed  to  the  command  of  the  artillery  in  the  Northern 
Department,  but  was  not  exchanged,  and  allowed  to  enter  the  service  again,  until 
early  in  1777,  when  Congress  gave  him  the  commission  of  lieutenant-colonel,  under 
the  immediate  command  of  General  Knox.  We  cannot  here  even  enumerate 
his  multifarious  duties,  as  commander  of  artillery,  during  the  remainder  of  the 
war.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  he  was  everywhere  brave  and  skilful,  and  shared 
in  the  dangers  and  honors  of  the  final  victory  at  Yorktown.  He  was  as  warm 
a  politician  after  the  war  as  before  it,  and  served  his  fellow-citizens  faithfully  in 
the  legislature  of  his  native  State.  After  the  organization  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment, "Washington  appointed  him  collector  of  customs  at  the  port  of  New  York, 
and  he  held  that  office  until  his  death,  on  the  31st  of  May,  1800,  at  the  age  of 
sixty-five  years.  Then  a  patriot  of  truest  stamp  was  lost  to  the  world. 


RED     JACKET. 

THE  renowned  Seneca  warrior  and  orator,  Sa-go-ye-wa-thee,  the  Eed  Jacket,1 
was  born  about  the  year  1750,  near  the  spot  where  the  city  of  Buffalo  now 
stands,  that  being  the  chief  place  of  residence  of  the  Seneca  leaders.  Tradition 
alone  has  preserved  a  few  facts  concerning  his  youth.  He  was  always  remark- 
ably swift-footed,  and  was  often  employed  as  a  courier  among  his  own  people. 
He  took  part  with  the  British  and  Tories  during  the  Revolution,  but  was  more 
noted  for  his  power  as  an  orator  in  arousing  the  Senecas  to  action,  than  as  a 
leader  upon  the  war-path.  Brant,  whom  Red  Jacket's  ambition  greatly  annoyed, 
even  charged  him  with  cowardice  during  Sullivan's  campaign  in  the  Seneca 
country,  in  1779,  and  always  spoke  of  Red  Jacket  with  mingled  feelings  of 
hatred  and  contempt,  as  a  traitor  and  dishonest  man.2  The  celebrated  Seneca 
first  appears  in  history  in  the  record  of  Sullivan's  campaign,  and  then  in  an  un- 
favorable light.  After  that  we  have  no  trace  of  him  until  1784,  when  he  ap- 
peared at  the  great  treaty  at  Fort  Stanwix  (now  Rome),  where,  by  certain  con- 
cessions of  territory  by  the  Six  Nations,  they  were  brought  under  the  protection 
of  the  United  States.  There  the  eloquence  of  Red  Jacket  beamed  forth  in  great 
splendor ;  and  there,  too,  the  voice  of  the  eloquent  Cornplanter3  was  heard.  Red 
Jacket  was  prominent  at  a  council  held  at  the  mouth  of  the  Detroit  river,  in 
1786.  After  that  there  were  many  disputes  and  heart-burnings  between  the 
white  people  and  the  Indians  of  Western  New  York,  concerning  land  titles,  and 
Red  Jacket  was  always  the  eloquent  defender  of  the  rights  of  his  people.  At 
all  treaties  and  councils  he  was  the  chief  orator.  He  frequently  visited  the  seat 

1.  This  name  was  given  him  from  the  circumstance  that  a  British  officer,  toward  the  close  of  tho 
Eevolution,  gave  him  a  richly-embroidered  scarlet  jacket,  which  he  took  great  pleasure  in  wearing. 
Others  were  presented  to  him,  as  one  was  worn  out ;  and  even  as  late  as  the  treaty  at  Canandaigua,  in 
1794,  Captain  Parish,  one  of  the  United  States'  interpreters,  gave  him  one.    The  red  jacket  became  his 
distinctive  dress,  and  procured  him  the  name  by  which  he  is  best  known. 

2.  Thomas  Morris  says  that  Red  Jacket  was  called  the  cow-killer  from  the  circumstance  that,  having 
on  one  occasion  during  the  Revolution,  aroused  his  people  to  fiprht,  was  found,  during  the  engagement, 
in  a  place  of  safety,  cutting  up  a  cow  that  he  had  killed,  which  belonged  to  another  Indian.    When 
Cornplanter,  Brant,  and  Red  Jacket,  were  at  Morris'  table,  one  day,  Cornplanter  told  the  story,  as  if 
another  Indian  had  committed  the  act.    The  narrator  and  Brant  laughed  heartily,  and  Red  Jacket  en- 
deavored to  join  them,  but  was  evidently  very  much  embarrassed. 

3.  See  sketch  of  Cornplanter. 


RED   JACKET. 


265 


of  our  national  government,  in  behalf  of  his  race,  and  was  always  treated  with 
the  utmost  respect.' 

Unlike  Cornplariter,  Red  Jacket's  paganism  never  yielded  to  the  gentle  in- 
fluences of  Christianity,  and  he  was  the  most  inveterate  enemy  to  all  missionary 
efforts  among  the  Senecas.  He  had  become  a  slave  to  strong  drink,  and  he 
attributed  the  prevalence  of  the  vice  among  his  people  to  the  missionaries,  who, 
he  said,  sold  liquor  to  the  Indians,  and  cheated  them  of  property.  On  the  break- 
ing out  of  the  war,  in  1812,  the  Senecas,  under  the  leadership  of  Red  Jacket, 
declared  themselves  neutral,  but  they  soon  became  allies  of  the  United  States, 
and  engaged  in  hostilities  on  the  Canada  frontier.  Red  Jacket  was  in  the  bloody 
battle  at  Chippewa,  and  behaved  well,  but  he  seems  to  have  been  constitution- 
ally a  coward,  and  was  always  far  braver  in  council  than  in  the  field.  Yet  this 
cowardice  in  battle,  though  well  known  to  the  nation,  did  not  lessen  their  affec- 
tion for  him,  nor  materially  weaken  his  influence  as  head  Chief  of  the  Senecas. 

lied  Jacket  had  a  large  family  of  children,  some  of  whom,  like  their  mother, 
became  professing  Christians.2  Eleven  of  them  died  of  that  terrible  disease,  the 
consumption,  one  after  another,  and  Red  Jacket  felt  his  bereavement  to  be  the 
chastisement  of  the  Great  Spirit  for  his  habitual  drunkenness.  On  being  asked 
about  his  family,  by  a  lady  who  once  knew  them,  the  chief  said,  sorrowfully,  "Red 


1.  On  one  occasion,  Washington  presented  a  la-ge  silver  medal  to  Red  Jacket,  bearing  the  representa- 
tion of  a  white  man  and  an  Indian  shaking  hands,  and  the  names  of  Washington  and  Ked  Jacket  en- 
graved upon  it. 

2.  His  second  wife  became  a  professed  Christian,  in  1826.     She  is  represented  as  a  woman  of  remark- 
able personal  dignity  and  superiority  of  mind.       Her  conversion  alienated  her  husband  for  several 
months,  and  he  resided  some  distance  from  her.    He  finally  thought  better  of  it,  asked  and  obtained  her 
forgiveness,  and  they  lived  in  perfect  liT.'mony  afterward. 


266  HENRY   CRUGER. 


Jacket  was  once  a  great  man,  and  in  favor  with  the  Great  Spirit.  Ho  was  a 
lofty  pine  among  the  smaller  trees  of  the  forest.  But  after  years  of  glory  he 
degraded  himself  by  drinking  the  fire-water  of  the  white  man.  The  Great  Spirit 
has  looked  upon  him  in  anger,  and  his  lightning  has  stripped  the  pine  of  its 
branches  /" 

The  influence  of  Christianity  and  civilization  upon  the  Seneca  nation  disturbed 
the  repose  of  Red  Jacket,  during  the  latter  part  of  his  life.  These  influences, 
working  with  a  general  disgust  produced  by  his  excessive  intemperance,  alien- 
ated his  people;  and,  in  1827,  he  was  formally  deposed.1  It  was  a  dreadful 
blow  to  the  proud  chief,  and  he  went  to  "Washington  city  to  invoke  the  aid  of 
government  in  his  behalf.  He  returned  with  good  advice  in  his  memory,  ob- 
tained a  grand  council,  and  was  restored  to  authority.  But  his  days  were  al- 
most numbered.  He  soon  afterward  became  imbecile,  and,  in  a  journey  to  the 
Atlantic  sea-board,  he  permitted  himself  to  be  exhibited  in  museums,  for  money! 
At  last  the  greatest  of  all  Indian  orators  was  called  away.  He  died  on  the  20th 
of  January,  1830,  at  the  age  of  about  eighty  years.  Over  his  grave,  Henry 
Placide,  the  comedian,  placed  an  inscribed  slab  of  marble,  in  1839. 


HENRY    CRUGER. 

ONE  of  the  chief  grievances  of  which  the  American  colonists  complained  was 
the  fact  that  they  were  compelled  to  suffer  taxation,  without  enjoying  the 
privilege  of  representation,  and  were  thus,  practically,  the  victims  of  tyranny. 
Yet  they  were  represented  by  a  few,  in  the  British  parliament,  when  the  quarrel 
which  resulted  in  dismemberment  was  progressing,  but  of  that  few,  only  one  was 
a  native  of  the  western  world.  It  was  Henry  Cruger,  who  was  born  in  the  city 
of  New  York,  in  1739.  On  arriving  at  manhood,  he  joined  his  father,  who  had 
established  himself  as  a  merchant  in  the  American  trade,  at  Bristol,  England. 
The  elder  Cruger  was  highly  esteemed,  and  became  mayor  of  Bristol ;  an  honor 
afterward  bestowed  upon  his  son.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  here,  that  father  and 
son,  belonging  to  another  branch  of  the  Cruger  famity,  were,  at  about  the  same 
time,  successively  honored  with  the  mayoralty  of  the  city  of  New  York. 

In  1774,  Henry  Cruger  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  Parliament,  as  representative 
of  the  city  of  Bristol,  having  for  his  colleague  the  afterward  eminent  Edmund 
Burke.  That  then  fledgling  statesman  was  introduced  at  the  hustings  by  Mr. 
Cruger,  and  delivered  an  address  at  the  conclusion,  which  elicited  warm  ap- 
plause. It  is  reported  that  a  gentleman  present  exclaimed,  "I  say  ditto  to  Mr. 
Burke."  That  laconic  sentence  became  a  "bye-word,"  and  was  erroniously  at- 
tributed to  Mr.  Cruger.  The  speeches  of  Mr.  Cruger,  in  Parliament,  were  marked 
by  sound  common  sense  and  great  logical  force ;  and  on  all  occasions  he  urged 
the  necessity  of  a  conciliatory  course  toward  the  Americans.  Like  Lord  Chatham, 
he  deprecated  a  severance  of  the  colonies  from  the  British  realm;  but,  in  1780, 
when  the  continuance  of  union  became  impossible,  he  declared  that  "the  Amer- 
ican war  should  be  put  an  end  to,  at  all  events,  in  order  to  do  which  the  inde- 
pendency must  be  allowed,  and  the  thirteen  provinces  treated  as  free  States." 
His  course  pleased  his  constituents,  who,  on  various  occasions,  testified  their 
warmest  approbation.  After  the  war,  he  returned  to  his  native  city,  and  was 
elected  a  member  of  the  Senate  of  the  State  of  New  York.  He  died  in  the  city 

1.  The  act  of  deposition,  written  in  the  Seueca  language,  was  signed  by  twenty-six  chief  men  of  the 
nation.  , 


JAMES  A.  BAYAKD.  267 


of  New  York,  on  the  24th  of  April,  1827,  at  the  age  of  eighty-eight  years.  His 
brother,  John  Harris  Cruger,  who  was  in  the  British  military  service  previous 
to  the  Revolution,  adhered  to  the  crown,  and  was  in  command  of  a  corps  of 
Loyalists  at  the  South.  He  held  the  commission  of  a  lieutenant-colonel,  and 
commanded  the  garrison  at  Fort  Ninety-Six  when  it  was  besieged  by  General 
Greene.  Colonel  Cruger  was  a  son-in-law  of  Colonel  Oliver  Delancey.  He  died 
in  London,  in  1807,  at  the  age  of  sixty-nine  years.  His  wife  died  at  Chelsea, 
England,  in  1822,  at  the  age  of  seventy-eight  years. 


JAMES    A.    BAYARD. 

WHEN",  in  1814,  the  American  and  British  governments  resolved  to  close  an 
unprofitable  and  fratricidal  war,  by  a  treaty  of  peace,  the  most  accom- 
plished statesmen  in  the  Union  were  chosen  commissioners,  to  meet  those  of 
Great  Britain,  at  Ghent,  in  Belgium,  to  negotiate.  On  that  commission  was 
James  A.  Bayard,  an  eminent  statesman  of  Delaware.  He  was  born  in  the  city 
of  Philadelphia,  on  the  28th  of  July,  1767.  At  a  very  early  age  he  became  an 
orphan,  and  was  adopted  by  an  affectionate  uncle,  who  took  special  care  to  have 
him  thoroughly  educated.  His  studies  were  completed  in  the  College  at  Prince- 
ton, N"ew  Jersey,  where  he  was  graduated  with  the  highest  honors,  in  1784,  at 
the  age  of  seventeen  years.  He  chose  the  profession  of  law,  studied  it  with 
great  assiduity,  under  General  Joseph  Reed  and  Jared  Ingersoll,  and  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar,  in  August,  1787.  He  was  married  in  1795,  and  the  following 
year  he  was  a  successful  Federal  candidate  for  a  seat  in  Congress,  where  he  first 
appeared  in  May,  1797.  There  he  was  noted  for  his  industry,  integrity,  and  con- 
sistency ;  and  during  his  services  as  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
from  1797  until  1804,  no  man  was  more  highly  esteemed  for  talents  and  personal 
worth  than  Mr.  Bayard. 

When,  in  the  Winter  of  1801,  the  choice  between  Jefferson  and  Burr,  the 
Republican  candidates  for  President  of  the  United  States,  devolved  upon  the 
House  of  Representatives,  and  Mr.  Bayard  and  three  other  Federal  members 
held  the  choice  in  their  own  hands,  his  colleagues  submitted  the  matter  to  his 
judgment,  and  he  fortunately  gave  the  office  to  Jefferson.  A  few  days  after- 
ward President  Adams  appointed  Mr.  Bayard  minister  plenipotentiary  to  France, 
but  he  patriotically  declined  it  for  political  reasons.  In  1804,  he  was  elected  to 
a  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate,  to  fill  a  vacancy;  and,  in  February,  1805, 
he  was  reflected  for  the  full  term  of  six  years.  In  that  body,  also,  he  was  an 
esteemed  leader;  and,  in  1811,  the  legislature  of  Delaware  again  elected  him 
United  States  Senator,  for  another  full  term.  He  opposed  the  declaration  of 
war  against  Great  Britain,  in  1812,  but,  when  a  majority  in  Congress  gave  sanc- 
tion to  the  measure,  he  cheerfully  acquiesced,  and,  it  is  said,  actually  labored 
with  his  own  hands  in  the  erection  of  defences  at  Wilmington,  where  he  resided. 
In  1813,  the  Emperor  of  Russia  offered  his  mediation  between  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain,  and  Mr.  Bayard  and  Albert  Gallatin  were  sent  to  St.  Peters- 
burg to  negotiate.  There  they  remained  six  months,  when,  hearing  nothing 
from  England,  they  proceeded  to  Amsterdam.  They  arrived  in  that  city  in 
March,  1814.  There  they  were  informed  that  England  would  not  accept  the 
mediation  of  Russia,  but  was  ready  to  treat  for  peace  with  the  United  States. 
They  were  also  informed  that  Messrs.  Adams,  Clay,  and  Russell,  had  been  added 
to  the  commission.  All  finally  met  with  the  British  commissioners  at  Ghent, 


268  ELIAS  HICKS. 


in  August,  1814,  where  they  remained  until  the  24th  of  December  following, 
when  a  treaty  was  agreed  upon  and  signed.1  Fourteen  days  afterward,  Mr- 
Bayard  left  Ghent  for  Paris;  and  on  the  4th  of  March,  1815,  while  in  that  city, 
he  was  seized  with  a  fatal,  but  lingering  disease.  He  waited  there  until  duty 
should  call  him  to  London  to  negotiate  a  treaty  of  commerce,  with  which  service 
the  commission  had  been  charged.  Greatly  debilitated,  he  reached  England 
at  the  middle  of  May,  where  he  was  met  by  a  commission,  appointing  him  min- 
ister to  Russia.  Feeling  that  death  was  now  rapidly  approaching,  he  declined 
the  honor,  and  hastened  home.  He  arrived  at  "Wilmington  on  the  1st  of  August, 
where  his  family  received  him  with  mingled  tears  of  joy  and  grief,  after  an  ab- 
sence of  more  than  two  years.  Five  days  afterward  he  departed  to  that  distant 
land  beyond  the  grave,  from  which  there  is  no  return.  He  died  on  the  6th  of 
August,  1815,  when  a  little  more  than  forty-eight  years  of  age. 


ELIAS   HICKS. 

THE  Society  of  Friends,  commonly  called  Quakers,  having  but  one  accepted 
standard  of  faith  and  discipline,  were  remarkable  for  their  unity  until  about 
1825,  when  Elias  Hicks,  a  distinguished  and  influential  preacher,  boldly  enun- 
ciated Unitarian  doctrines.  This  produced  much  dissatisfaction,  and  the  hitherto 
united  and  peaceful  society  exhibited  two  parties,  styled  respectively  Orthodox, 
or  Trinitarians,  and  Hicksites,  or  Unitarians,  and  was  agitated  by  much  and 
violent  party  feelings.  The  breach  widened,  and  finally  a  separation  took  place. 
The  two  parties  assumed  distinct  organizations,  and  the  Unitarians,  being  in  the 
majority,  generally  took  possession  of  the  meeting-houses,  and  compelled  the 
Orthodox  to  erect  new  ones.  The  breach  still  continues. 

Elias  Hicks  was  born  in  Hempstead,  Long  Island,  on  the  19th  of  March,  1748. 
Of  his  early  life  we  have  no  record,  except  that  it  Avas  passed  in  the  quiet  pur- 
suits of  a  farmer.  He  was  married  in  January,  1771,  and  at  about  that  period 
was  acknowledged  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends.  Four  years  afterward 
he  first  appeared  as  a  minister ;  and  for  fifty -three  years  he  was  a  teacher  among 
his  brethren.  During  that  time  he  travelled  extensively  throughout  the  United 
States  and  Upper  Canada ;  and  at  the  age  of  eighty  years  he  visited  his  brethren 
and  sisters  in  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  Ohio,  and  Indiana,  like 
Paul,  "confirming  them  in  the  faith."  Soon  after  his  return  home,  his  wife  died, 
and  the  following  Summer  he  visited  the  northern  and  western  parts  of  the 
State  of  New  York,  everywhere  preaching  with  great  clearness  and  power. 
The  writer  heard  him  at  that  time,  and  remembers  well  how  logically  he  set 
forth  the  doctrine  which  he  had  espoused  and  then  ably  advocated.  His  labors 
ceased  six  months  afterward.  On  the  4th  of  February,  1830,  he  wrote  a  long 
and  interesting  letter  to  a  Western  friend,  and  immediately  afterward  his  whole 
right  side  was  smitten  with  paralysis.  He  died  on  the  27th  of  the  same  month, 
aged  eighty-two  years.  During  his  ministry,  he  travelled  almost  ten  thousand 
miles,  and  delivered  at  least  one  thousand  discourses.2 

1.  Bayard's  colleagues  were  John  Quincy  Adams,  Henry  Clay,  Jonathan  Russell,  and  Albert  Gallatin. 
Those  of  Great  Britain  were  Lord  Gambler,  Henry  Goulbourn,  and  William  Adams. 

2.  An  anecdote  is  told  which  illustrates  his  conscientiousness.     He  was  informed  by  his  son-in-law 
that  a  man  who  owed  them  both  had  become  a  bankrupt,  "  but,"  said  the  son,  "he  has  secured  thec 
and  me."     "  Has  he  secured  all?"  inquired  the  old  man.     On  receiving  a  reply  in  the  negative,  he  said, 
"  That  is  not  right ;"  and  he  insisted  upon  the  creditors  placing  him  and  his  son-in-law  on  the  same 
footing  with  others. 


COUNT  RUMFORD. 


269 


COUNT    RTJMFORD. 

BY  industry,  perseverance,  and  integrity,  working  an  harmony  with  genius  and 
a  truly  benevolent  spirit,  Benjamin  Thompson,  a  humble  New  Hampshire 
schoolmaster,  became  a  "Count  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,"  and  a  companion 
of  kings  and  philosophers.  He  was  born  at  Woburn,  Massachusetts,  on  the 
28th  of  March,  1753.  His  widowed  mother  was  in  comfortable  circumstances, 
and  the  common  school  furnished  him  with  an  elementary  education.  He  "was 
a  merchant's  clerk,  at  Salem,  for  awhile,  and  then  commenced  the  study  of 
medical  science  in  his  native  town.  He  attended  lectures  at  Cambridge,  in  1771, 
and  employed  a  portion  of  his  time  in  teaching  schools,  first  at  Wilmington,  and 
then  at  Bradford.  He  was  finally  invited  to  take  charge  of  a  school  at  Rum- 
ford  (now  Concord),  in  New  Hampshire.  The  fame  of  his  philosophical  experi- 
ments already  made  preceded  him,  and  his  handsome  face,  noble  person,  and 
grace  of  manners,  made  him  a  favorite.  Before  he  was  twenty  years  of  age,  he 
was  the  husband  of  a  young  and  wealthy  widow,  daughter  of  Rev.  Timothy 
Walker,  minister  of  the  town.  His  talent  and  this  connection  gave  him  high 
social  position,  at  once,  and  he  found  leisure  to  pursue  scientific  investigations. 
Thus  he  was  employed  when  the  storms  of  the  Revolution  began  to  gather 
darkly.  The  time  came  when  he  must  make  public  choice  of  party — be  active, 
or  suffer  suspicion.  With  conscientious  motives,  he  declined  to  act  with  the 


270  COUNT  KUMFOKD. 


Whigs.  His  neutrality  was  construed  as  opposition,  and  he  was  finally  com- 
pelled to  fly,  for  personal  safety,  to  the  protection  of  the  British,  in  Boston,  leav- 
ing behind  him  all  he  held  most  dear  on  earth — mother,  wife,  child,  friends,  and 
fortune.  That  persecution,  under  Providence,  led  to  his  greatness. 

Mr.  Thompson  remained  in  Boston  until  the  Spring  of  1776,  when  General 
Howe  sent  him  to  England  with  important  despatches  for  the  British  ministry 
concerning  the  evacuation  of  the  New  England  capital.  The  ministry  appre- 
ciated his  worth,  and  scientific  men  sought  his  acquaintance.  He  was  offered 
public  employment,  and  accepted  it ;  and  in  less  than  four  years  after  he  landed 
in  England,  a  homeless  exile,  he  was  made  Under-Secretary  of  State.  In  1782, 
he  was  in  America  a  short  time,  but  could  not  see  his  family.  The  following- 
year  he  went  to  Germany,  bearing  letters  of  introduction  from  eminent  men  in 
England.  He  was  introduced  to  the  Elector  of  Bavaria,  who  at  once  offered 
him  honorable  employment  in  his  service.  He  repaired  to  England  to  ask  per- 
mission to  accept  it,  received  the  favor,  and  was  knighted  by  the  king.  Soon 
after  his  return  to  Munich  he  entered  upon  public  service,  and  the  "  Yankee 
schoolmaster,"  like  Joseph,  became  the  second  man  in  the  kingdom.  The  Elec- 
tor made  him  Lieutenant-General ;  Commander-in-chief  of  the  Staff;  Minister  of 
"War ;  Member  of  the  Council  of  State ;  a  Knight  of  Poland ;  Member  of  the 
Academy  of  Sciences  in  three  cities ;  Commander-in-chief  of  the  General  Staff; 
Superintendent  of  the  Police  of  Bavaria,  and  Chief  of  the  Regency  during  the 
sovereign's  compulsory  absence,  in  1796.  He  accomplished  great  civil  and 
.military  reforms,  in  Bavaria;  and  during  his  ten  years'  service,  he  produced 
such  salutary  changes  in  the  condition  of  the  people,  that  he  won  the  unbounded 
love  and  admiration  of  all  classes.1  When,  in  1796,  Munich  was  assailed  by  an 
Austrian  army,  Sir  Benjamin  Thompson  commanded  the  Bavarian  troops,  and 
he  conducted  the  defence  so  successfully  that  he  won  the  highest  praises  through- 
out Europe.  The  Bavarian  monarch  attested  his  appreciation  of  his  great  ser- 
vices, by  creating  him  a  Count  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  He  chose  the  name 
of  the  birth-place  of  his  wife  and  child  for  his  title,  and  henceforth  he  was  known 
as  Count  of  Rumford. 

In  1792,  Sir  Benjamin  had  heard  of  the  death  of  his  wife.  He  had  soon  after- 
ward visited  England,  on  account  of  ill-health,  where  he  remained  some  time, 
engaged  in  scientific  pursuits.  From  there,  in  1794,  he  wrote  to  his  daughter, 
the  infant  he  left  behind,  to  join  him.  She  did  so,  early  in  1796.  She  was  then 
a  charming  girl  of  twenty  years,  and,  with  a  father's  pride,  he  conveyed  her  to 
Munich,  introduced  her  at  court,  and  placed  her  at  the  head  of  his  household. 
\E11  health  again  compelled  him  to  travel,  and  he  went  to  England,  bearing  the 
highly  honorable  commission  of  Bavarian  minister  at  the  court  of  St.  James. 
He  could  not  be  received,  as  such,  for  the  laws  of  English  citizenship  would  not 
allow  it.  At  about  that  time  he  received  an  invitation  from  the  American  gov- 
ernment to  visit  his  native  land.  Circumstances  prevented  his  compliance,  and 
he  again  went  to  Munich,  where  he  remained  until  the  death  of  the  Elector,  in 
1799,  when  he  quitted  Bavaria  forever.  He  went  to  Paris,  married  the  widow 
of  the  celebrated  Lavoisier,  and  at  a  beautiful  villa  at  Auteil,  near  Paris,  he 
passed  the  remainder  of  his  days  in  literary  and  scientific  pursuits,  and  in  the 
society  of  the  most  learned  men  in  Europe.  There  he  died,  on  the  21st  of 
August,  1814,  in  the  sixty-second  year  of  his  age.  His  daughter  inherited  his 

1.  He  established  a  military  workhouse  at  Manheim,  and,  by  stringent,  yet  benevolent  regulations,  he 
almost  totally  abolished  vagrancy  and  mendicity  from  Munich,  which  had  ever  been  noted  for  these 
nuisances.  In  the  exercise  of  his  good  taste  and  enterprise,  he  greatly  adorned  and  beautified  Munich. 
A  barren  waste  near  the  city  was  converted  into  a  charming  park  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  people,  and 
there  pleasure-gardens  bloomed.  To  express  their  gratitude  for  these  various  reformatory  efforts,  the 
nobility  and  other  principal  inhabitants  of  Munich  erected  a  handsome  monument,  with  appropriate  in- 
scriptions upon  it,  commemorative  of  his  deeds,  within  the  beautiful  pleasure-grounds  he  had  given 
them. 


STEPHEN  GIRARD.  271 


large  fortune,  and  the  title  of  Countess  of  llumford.1  After  many  vicissitudes  in 
Europe,  she  returned  to  her  native  land,  and  died  at  Concord,  on  the  2d  of 
December,  1852,  at  the  age  of  seventy  years.2  The  death  of  Count  Rumford, 
says  Professor  lien  wick,  deprived  "  mankind  of  one  of  its  eminent  benefactors, 
and  science  of  one  of  its  brightest  ornaments." 


STEPHEN    QIRARD. 

IT  is  honorable  to  be  wealthy,  when  wealth  is  honorably  acquired,  and  when 
it  is  used  for  laudable  or  noble  purposes.  One  of  the  most  eminent  possess- 
ors of  great  riches,  among  the  comparatively  few  in  this  country,  was  Stephen 
G-irard  of  Philadelphia,  where  the  memory  of  his  opulence  is  perpetuated  by  a 
college  bearing  his  name.  He  was  a  native  of  France,  and  was  born  near  Bor- 
deaux, on  the  24th  of  May,  1750.  He  was  the  child  of  a  peasant,  and  the  only 
school  in  which  he  was  educated  was  the  great  world  of  active  life.  "When 
about  eleven  years  of  age  he  left  his  native  country,  and  sailed  as  a  cabin-boy 
for  the  West  Indies.  He  afterward  went  to  New  York,  and  spent  several  years 
in  voyages  between  that  port  and  the  "West  Indies  and  New  Orleans,  as  cabin- 
boy,  seaman,  mate,  and  finally  as  master.  Having  saved  some  money,  he  opened 
a  small  shop  in  Philadelphia,  in  1769,  and  the  next  year  he  married  the  beautiful 
daughter  of  a  caulker.  His  own  asperity  of  temper  made  their  connubial  life  un- 
happy. She  became  insane,  in  1790,  and  died  in  the  Philadelphia  hospital,  in 
1815,  leaving  no  children. 

After  his  marriage,  G-irard  occasionally  sailed  to  the  West  Indies,  as  master 
of  his  own  vessel.  On  one  occasion  he  was  captured,  and,  after  awhile,  returned 
home  poor.  After  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  he  and  his  brother  carried  on  a 
profitable  trade  with  St.  Domingo;  and  on  their  dissolution  of  partnership, 
Stephen  continued  the  business  on  his  own  account.  While  two  of  his  vessels 
were  there,  in  1804,  the  great  revolt  of  the  negroes,  which  resulted  in  the  mas- 
sacre of  the  white  people,  took  place.  Many  planters  who  sent  their  valuables 
on  board  his  vessels  never  lived  to  claim  them,  for  whole  families  were  destroyed. 
A  large  sum  of  money  was  thus  placed  in  his  possession  and  never  called  for. 
He  afterward  engaged  extensively  and  successfully  in  the  East  India  trade ;  and, 
in  1812,  he  opened  his  own  private  bank,  in  Philadelphia,  with  a  capital  of  one 
million  two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  When  the  new  United  States  Bank  was 
started,  in  1816,  he  subscribed  for  stock  to  the  amount  of  over  three  millions  of 

1.  In  addition  to  ample  provisions  for  his  mother,  Count  Rumford  gave  the  American  Academy  of 
Arts  and  Sciences  five  thousand  dollars,  in  1796,  and  also  very  liberally  endowed  a  professorship  in  Har- 
vard University.     The  Rumford  Professorship  in  that  institution  was  established  in  1816. 

2.  The  residence  of  Miss  Sarah  Thompson,  Countess  of  Rumford,  was  a  beautiful  villa  on  the  banks 
of  the  Merrimac,  south  of  the  village  of  Concord.    A  gentleman  of  the  highest  respectability,  who  was 
intimately  acquainted  with  that  lady,  informs  me  that  it  was  her  firm  belief  that  her  father  did  not  die  in 
France,  as  is  supposed.    She  related  that  on  hearing  of  the  death  of  her  father,  she  repaired  to  Auteuil, 
but  the  servants  could  not  show  his  grave,  and  their  conduct  appeared  mysterious.     She  afterward  went 
to  England,  and  lived  in  a  house  that  belonged  to  her  father,  at  Brompton,  and  which  was  bequeathed 
to  her  in  his  Will.     An  adjoining  landholder  soon  afterward  claimed  the  property,  and  took  legal  steps 
to  eject  her.    Without  solicitation  on  her  part,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  lawyers  in  London  espoused 
her  cause,  secured  a  verdict  in  her  favor,  and  refused  any  compensation.     Fourteen  years  after  the  re- 
ported death  of  her  father,  the  Countess,  while  repairing  her  house,  was  looking  out  of  a  window  upon  a 
neighboring  dwelling,  when  she  plainly  naw  the  Count  at  a  window.    He  immediately  stepped  back,  out 
of  sight.    When  she  recovered  from  her  surprise,  she  rushed  to  the  street,  and  hastened  toward  the  house 
where  she  saw  her  father.     At  that  moment  he  stepped  into  a  coach,  and  she  never  saw  him  afterward. 
The  Countess  fully  believed  that  he  had  probably  become  entangled  in  some  political  coil  in  France, 
found  it  necessary  to  retire  from  the  world,  had  his  death  reported,  and  lived  incognito  in  London,  and 
sometimes  at  Brompton.     She  believed  that  he  had  kept  a  vigilant  eye  over  her  welfare,  and  that  he 
employed  and  paid  the  eminent  London  barrister,  who  managed  her  suit  at  Brompton.     She  died  in  the 
belief  that  her  father  was  yet  alive,  in  1828,  when  she  so  distinctly  saw  him  at  Brompton. 


272  JOHN  JAMES  AUDUBON. 

dollars,  which  immensely  augmented  in  value.  The  capital  of  his  own  bank 
finally  reached  four  millions  of  dollars.  In  all  his  pecuniary  transactions,  Mr. 
Girard  was  successful,  if  accumulation  is  the  test  of  success.  He  left  behind  a 
fortune  of  about  nine  millions  of  dollars,  a  very  small  portion  of  which  was  be- 
queathed to  his  relatives.  Few  of  them  received  more  than  ten  thousand  dollars 
each,  except  a  favorite  niece,  to  whom  he  gave  sixty  thousand  dollars.  The 
city  of  Philadelphia,  in  trust,  was  his  chief  legatee.  He  left  two  millions  of 
dollars,  "or  more  if  necessary,"  to  build  and  endow  a  college  for  the  education 
and  maintenance  of  "poor  male  orphan  children,"  to  be  "received  between  the 
ages  of  six  and  ten,  and  to  bo  bound  out  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and 
eighteen,  to  suitable  occupations,  as  those  of  agriculture,  navigation,  arts,  me- 
chanical trades,  and  manufactures."1  Mr.  Girard  died  in  Philadelphia,  of  influ- 
enza, on  the  26th  of  December,  1831,  in  the  eighty-second  year  of  his  age. 


JOHN   JAMES    AUDUBON. 

BARON"  CTJYIER,  the  great  naturalist,  paid  a  just  tribute  of  praise  to  Audu- 
bon's  work,  The  Birds  of  America,  when  he  said,  "It  is  the  most  gigantic 
and  most  magnificent  monument  that  has  ever  been  erected  to  Nature."  Tho 
man  who  reared  it  possessed  genius  of  the  highest  order,  and  his  name  and  deeds 
will  be  remembered  as  long  as  the  Bird  of  Washington  soars  in  the  firmament, 
or  the  swallow  twitters  in  the  barn. 

John  James  Audubon  was  born  in  New  Orleans,  on  the  4th  of  May,  1780,  of 
French  parents  in  opulent  circumstances.  From  infantile  years  he  was  ever 
delighted  with  the  song  and  plumage  of  birds ;  and  his  educated  father  fostered 
that  taste  which  afterward  led  him  to  fame,  by  describing  the  habits  of  the  ten- 
ants of  the  woods,  and  explaining  the  peculiarities  of  different  species.  At  the 
age  of  fifteen  years  young  Audubon  was  sent  to  Paris  to  complete  his  education. 
There  he  enjoyed  instruction  in  art,  for  two  years,  under  the  celebrated  David. 
When  about  eighteen  years  of  age  he  returned  to  America,  and  soon  afterward 
his  father  gave  him  a  farm  on  the  banks  of  the  Schuylkill,  at  the  mouth  of  Per- 
kioming  creek,  not  far  from  Philadelphia.  His  time  was  chiefly  spent  in  forest 
roamings,  with  his  gun  and  drawing  materials.  The  study  of  birds  had  become 
a  passion,  and  the  endearments  of  a  home,  presided  over  by  a  young  wife,  could 
not  keep  him  from  the  woods,  whither  he  went  at  early  dawn,  and  returned 
wet  with  the  evening  dews. 

In  1809,  Mr.  Audubon  went  to  Louisville,  Kentucky,  to  reside,  where  he  re- 
mained about  two  years  in  a  mercantile  connection,  but  spending  most  of  his  time 
in  the  woods.  There,  in  March,  1810,  he  first  saw  Wilson,  the  great  ornithologist- 
A  few  months  afterward  he  moved  further  up  the  Ohio  to  the  verge  of  the  wil- 
derness, and  then  commenced  in  earnest  that  nomadic  life  in  the  prosecution  of 
his  great  stud}7",  which  marked  him  as  a  true  hero.  With  gun,  knapsack,  and 
drawing  materials,  he  traversed  the  dark  forests  and  pestiferous  fens,  sleeping 

1.  Mr.  Girard  has  been  much  censured  because  he  directed,  in  his  Will,  "that  no  ecclesiastic,  mis- 
sionary, or  minister,  of  any  sect  whatsoever,  shall  ever  hold  or  exercise  any  station  or  duty  whatever  in 
said  college ;  nor  shall  any  such  person  ever  be  admitted,  for  any  purpose,  or  as  a  visitor,  within  the 
premises  appropriated  to  the  purpose  of  said  college."    Mr.  Girard  immediately  explained,  by  averring 
that  he  "  did  not  mean  to  cast  any  reflection  upon  any  sect  or  person  whatever."    In  view  of  the  clash- 
ing doctrines  of  various  sects,  he  desired  "  to  keep  the  tender  minds  of  the  orphans"  free  from  those  ex- 
citements.    He  required  the  instructors  to  teach  the  purest  morality,  in  all  its  forms,  and  summed  up  his 
object  by  saying  that  he  wished  the  pupils,  when  they  left  the  college,  to  adopt  "  at  the  same  time,  such 
religious  tenets  as  their  matured  reason  may  enable  them  to  prefer." 

2.  See  sketch  of  Wilsor. 


JOHN  JAMES  AUDUBON. 


273 


beneath  the  broad  canopy  of  heaven,  procuring  food  with  his  rifle,  and  cooking 
it  when  hunger  demanded  appeasement,  and  undergoing,  day  after  day,  the 
greatest  fatigues  and  privations.  For  months  and  years  he  thus  wandered,  from 
the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  rocky  coasts  of  Labrador,  studying  and 
preserving,  with  no  other  motive  than  the  gratification  of  a  great  controlling 
passion.  It  was  not  until  after  an  interview  with  Charles  Lucien  Bonaparte,  the 
eminent  ornithologist,  in  1824,  that  Audubon  experienced  a  desire  for  fame,  and 
thought  of  publishing  the  results  of  his  labors.  Thus  far  his  mature  life  had 
been  devoted  to  the  worship  of  Nature  in  one  of  its  most  beautiful  and  interest- 
ing forms,  and  the  devotee  was  entirely  lost  to  himself  in  the  excess  of  his  emo- 
tions. Now  a  new  world  opened  before  him.  He  made  another  tour  of  eighteen 
months'  duration;  and,  in  1826,  he  sailed  for  England  to  make  arrangements  for 
publishing  some  of  his  drawings  and  descriptive  notices.  The  portraits  of  birds 
were  of  life  size,  and  their  exhibition  produced  a  great  sensation  among  artists 
and  literary  men,  in  Great  Britain.  He  was  received  with  enthusiasm,  especially 
at  Edinburgh,  where  true  genius  has  always  been  appreciated,  and  there  he 
made  an  arrangement  for  the  engraving  of  his  pictures.  Subscriptions  to  his 
work,  amounting  to  about  eighty  thousand  dollars,  were  speedily  obtained,  and 


274  HENKY  KNOX. 


Audubon  personally  superintended  the  engravings.  He  was  most  cordially  re- 
ceived in  Paris,  in  1829;  and  the  following  year  he  was  again  traversing  the 
wilds  of  his  native  country.  Toward  the  close  of  1830,  the  first  volume  of  his 
great  work  was  issued.  The  monarchs  of  France  and  England  headed  his  subscrip- 
tion list.  The  second  volume  appeared  in  1834,  and  within  the  next  three  years, 
the  work  was  completed  in  four  magnificent  volumes,  containing  over  a  thousand 
figures.  In  1839,  Mr.  Audubon  made  his  residence  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson, 
near  the  city  of  New  York,  and  there  his  family  have  ever  since  resided.  In 
1844,  he  completed  and  published  his  great  work,  in  seven  imperial  octavo 
volumes,  the  engravings  having  been  carefully  reduced. 

Not  contented  with  the  accomplishment  of  such  a  vast  undertaking,  Mr.  Au- 
dubon, at  the  age  of  sixty-five  years,  again  went  to  the  fields,  forests,  swamps, 
and  mountains,  with  his  two  sons,  to  explore  another  department  of  natural 
history.  After  immense  toil  and  continual  hardships,  he  returned  full  freighted 
with  drawings  and  descriptions  of  The  Quadrupeds  of  America,  equal,  in  every 
respect,  to  those  of  his  other  work.  These  were  published  under  his  immediate 
supervision,  and  with  the  completion  of  that  work  his  great  labors  ceased.  He 
lived  in  repose  at  his  residence  near  Fort  "Washington,  until  the  27th  of  January, 
1851,  when,  at  the  age  of  seventy-one  years,  ho  went  to  his  final  rest.  Then  a 
brilliant  star  went  out  from  the  firmament  of  genius. 


HENRY    KNOX. 

rPHE  founder  and  chief  of  the  artillery  service  in  the  Continental  army  was 
JL  Henry  Knox,  a  young  bookseller  in  Boston  (his  native  city),  when  the  War 
for  Independence  was  kindled  at  Lexington  and  Concord.  He  was  born  on  the 
25th  of  July,  1750,  and  while  a  mere  youth,  his  feelings  were  zealously  enlisted 
in  favor  of  popular  freedom,  by  the  political  discussions  elicited  by  the  Stamp 
Act  and  succeeding  parliamentary  measures.  He  was  known  and  marked  as  a 
rebel  at  the  time  of  the  tea-riot ;  and  when  Lucy,  the  accomplished  daughter  of 
Thomas  Flucker,  secretary  of  the  province,  gave  him  her  heart  and  hand,  her 
friends  regarded  her  as  a  ruined  girl.  How  different  the  result  from  the  antici- 
pation !  Some  of  these,  who  adhered  to  the  royal  cause,  and  were  afterward 
broken  in  fortune,  thought  it  an  honor  to  enjoy  the  friendship  of  Lucy  Knox, 
who,  during  the  time  of  the  first  presidency,  stood  in  the  front  rank  of  social 
position. 

After  the  skirmishes  at  Lexington  and  Concord,  young  Knox  escaped  from 
Boston,  accompanied  by  his  wife,  who  carried  his  sword  concealed  in  her  petti- 
coat. He  entered  the  army  at  Cambridge,  fought  gallantly  as  a  volunteer  at 
the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  then  entered  the  engineer  service  with  the  commission 
of  lieutenant-colonel,  and  superseded  Gridley  as  commander.  In  the  Autumn 
of  1775,  he  was  directed,  at  his  own  suggestion,  to  organize  an  artillery  corps; 
and  the  army  at  Boston  being  without  heavy  guns,  he  was  sent,  in  November, 
to  transport  thither  the  cannons  and  ammunition  from  the  captured  fortresses  of 
Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point.  After  great  fatigue  and  hardships,  he  arrived  at 
Cambridge,  at  the  close  of  the  year,  with  forty-two  sled  loads  of  munitions  of 
war.1  These  were  used  effectively,  a  few  weeks  later,  in  driving  the  British 
from  Boston.  In  December,  1776,  Congress  resolved  to  "  appoint  a  brigadier- 

1.  These  consisted  of  eight  brass  and  six  iron  mortars,  two  iron  howitzers,  thirteen  hrass  and  twenty- 
six  iron  cannons,  twenty -three  hundred  pounds  of  lead,  and  one  barrel  of  flints. 


LOTT  CAEY.  275 


general  of  artillery,"  and  Colonel  Knox  received  the  commission.  From  that 
time  until  the  final  great  action  at  Yorktown,  in  1781,  General  Knox  was  in 
constant  and  efficient  service,  and  most  of  the  time  under  the  immediate  com- 
mand of  Washington.  He  was  always  influential  in  council  and  active  in  duty. 

After  the  capture  of  Cornwallis,  Knox  was  promoted  to  major-general,  and 
remained  in  service  until  the  close  of  the  war.  He  was  in  command  of  the  rem- 
nant of  the  Continental  army  which  marched  into  and  took  possession  of  the 
city  of  New  York,  when  the  British  evacuated  it  in  November,  1783.  He  suc- 
ceeded General  Lincoln  as  Secretary  of  War  under  the  old  Confederation ;  and 
on  the  organization  of  the  new  government,  in  1789,  President  Washington 
called  him  to  the  same  office,  in  his  cabinet.  He  resigned  that  office  in  1794. 
On  the  organization  of  a  provisional  army,  in  1798,  to  repel  expected  French 
invasion,  General  Knox  was  appointed  to  a  command,  but  he  was  never  called 
from  his  retirement  at  Thomaston,  Maine,  to  the  field  of  military  duty.  There 
he  lived  in  dignified  repose  after  a  successful  and  honorable  career,  until  the 
Autumn  of  1806,  when,  on  the  25th  of  October,  he  died  suddenly,  in  the  fifty- 
seventh  year  of  his  age.  His  death  was  caused  by  the  lodgment  of  a  chicken 
bone  in  his  throat,  while  at  dinner. 

To  the  benevolent  and  patriotic  emotions  of  General  Knox  is  due  the  immortal 
honor  of  having  suggested  that  truly  noble  institution,  the  Society  of  the  Cincin- 
nati.1 


LOTT    GARY. 

"  "VfOT  many  wise  men,  after  the  flesh,  not  many  mighty,  not  many  noble,  are 
1M  called "  to  the  great  work  of  human  redemption,  spiritual  and  social. 
The  authors  of  great  reforms,  the  real  founders  of  kingdoms,  the  great  benefactors 
of  mankind,  have  generally  been  men  who  were  nurtured  and  reared  among  the 
warm  sympathies  of  the  common  people,  and  their  origin,  like  that  of  Lott  Gary, 
has  often  been  in  the  most  profound  depths  of  obscurity.  That  faithful  servant 
of  God  and  of  his  own  people,  was  of  African  descent,  and  born  a  slave,  near 
Charles  City  Court-house,  in  Virginia,  on  the  plantation  of  William  Christian. 
In  1804,  he  was  hired  out  as  a  common  laborer  in  the  city  of  Richmond,  where 
he  became  intemperate,  and  was  very  profane.  Three  years  afterward  deep 
religious  impressions  changed  his  habits  and  thoughts,  and  he  became  a  member 
of  the  Baptist  Church.  He  could  not  read,  but,  procuring  a  New  Testament, 
and  applying  himself  faithfully,  he  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  alphabet  and 
words,  and  finally  succeeded  in  learning  to  both  read  and  write.  His  industry 
and  fidelity  in  a  tobacco  factory,  enabled  him,  with  a  little  friendly  aid,  to  pur- 
chase himself  and  two  half-orphan  children,  in  1813,  for  eight  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars.  He  soon  became  an  itinerant  preacher  on  the  plantations  in  the  vicinity 
of  Richmond,  and  labored  with  the  most  earnest  zeal  for  the  spiritual  good  of 
his  race.  In  1821,  the  American  Colonization  Society  sent  its  first  band  of 
emigrants  to  Africa,  and  Lott  Gary  volunteered  to  leave  a  salary  of  several 
hundred  dollars  a  year,  to  accompany  those  people  to  a  field  where  he  felt  that 
he  might  be  of  vast  service  to  his  benighted  nation.  He  participated  in  all  the 
hardships  and  dangers  of  that  little  colony,  yet  he  persevered,  and  became  one 

1.  This  was  an  association  composed  of  the  officers  of  the  Continental  army,  organized  for  the  pur- 
poses of  mutual  friendship  and  mutual  relief.  Although  every  one  of  the  original  members  are  gone 
down  into  the  grave,  the  Society  continues,  because  the  membership  is  hereditary.  The  eldest  male 
descendant  of  the  original  member  is  entitled  to  the  privileges  of  membership.  There  was  a  General 
Society,  and  auxiliary  State  Societies.  Washington  was  the  first  president  of  the  General  Society,  and 
gnox  was  the  first  secretary.  There  are  yet  [1865]  several  State  Societies  in  existence. 


276  DANIEL  WEBSTER. 


of  the  founders  of  the  now  flourishing  republic  of  Liberia,  on  the  western  coast 
of  Africa.1  He  became  health-inspector  and  physician  of  the  colony,  having  re- 
ceived some  instruction  in  the  healing  art,  from  Dr.  Ayres ;  and,  hTl824,  he  had 
more  than  a  hundred  patients.  As  early  as  1815,  he  assisted  in  forming  an 
African  Missionary  Society,  in  Richmond ;  and  in  Africa  he  performed  its  work 
as  well  as  he  could.  Through  his  agency,  a  school  was  established  about  seventy 
miles  from  Monrovia.  In  September,  1826,  he  was  appointed  vice-agent  of  the 
colony;  and  when,  in  1828,  Mr.  Ashmun,  the  agent  of  the  Society,  was  com- 
pelled to  withdraw  on  account  of  ill-health,  he  cheerfully  and  confidently  left 
the  entire  control  of  affairs  in  Mr.  Gary's  hands.  He  managed  well,  as  chief  of 
a  colony  of  twelve  hundred  freemen,  for  about  six  months,  when,  on  account  of 
a  difficulty  with  the  natives,  he  prepared  for  a  military  expedition  against  them. 
"While  making  cartridges,  an  explosion  took  place,  which  killed  the  venerated 
Gary  and  seven  others,  on  the  8th  of  November,  1828.  His  death  was  a  great 
loss  to  the  colony  and  to  the  cause  of  the  gospel  triumphs  in  dark  Africa. 


DANIEL    WEBSTER. 

AS  early  as  1813,  during  the  first  months  of  his  long  membership  in  the  National 
Legislature,  the  speeches  of  Daniel  Webster  marked  him  as  a  peerless  man, 
and  drew  from  a  Southern  member  the  expression,  "  The  North  has  not  his 
equal,  nor  the  South  his  superior."     That  high  preeminence  in  statesmanship  he 
held  until  his  death. 

Daniel  Webster  was  born  in  Salisbury,  New  Hampshire,  on  the  18th  of  Jan- 
uary, 1782,  and  was  descended  from  the  hardy  yeomanry  of  New  England.  His 
father  was  a  thrifty  farmer,  and  he  taught  all  of  his  sons  to  labor  industriously 
with  their  hands.  As  Daniel  emerged  from  childhood  to  youth,  and  his  phys- 
ical frame  became  strong  and  hardy,  he  labored  in  the  fields  during  the  Summer, 
and  attended  a  district  school,  two  miles  from  his  home,  in  the  Winter.2  The 
remarkable  tenacity  of  his  memory  was  exhibited  at  a  very  early  age,  and  at 
fourteen  he  could  repeat  several  entire  volumes  of  poetry.  At  about  that  timo 
he  entered  the  Phillips  Academy,  at  Exeter,3  New  Hampshire,  then  under  the 
charge  of  Dr.  Abbott.  After  studying  the  classics,  for  awhile,  under  Dr.  Woods, 
of  Boscaweri,  New  Hampshire,  he  entered  Dartmouth  College,  at  Hanover,4  at 
the  age  of  fifteen  years.  There  he  pursued  his  studies  with  industry  and  ear- 
nestness, yet  with  no  special  promises  of  future  greatness.  Ho  was  graduated 
with  high  honor,  chose  law  as  a  profession,  and  completed  a  course  of  legal 
studies  under  Christopher  Gore,  of  Boston,  afterward  governor  of  Massachusetts. 
He  was  admitted  to  the  Suffolk  bar,  in  1805,  but  preferring  the  country,  he  first 
established  himself  at  Boscawen,  and  afterward  at  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire. 
He  made  his  residence  at  the  latter  place,  in  1807,  and  that  year  he  was  admitted 
to  practice  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  New  Hampshire.  There  he  became  noted 

1.  He  said  in  a  letter,  in  1823,  after  he  had  been  in  several  battles  with  the  hostile  native-,  "There 
never  has  been  a  minute,  no,  not  when  the  balls  were  flying  around  my  head,  when  I  could  wish  myself 
again  in  America." 

2.  The  teacher  at  that  time  was  Benjamin  Tappan,  a  native  of  East  Kingston,  New  Hampshire,  where 
he  was  born  in  1767-    He  was  educated  at  the  Exeter  Academy,  and  at  the  solicitation  of  Webster's 
father,  went  to  Salisbury,  and  took  charge  of  the  district  school.    Master  Tappan  survived  his  distin- 
guished pupil  a  few  months.    He  died  on  the  9th  of  February,  1853,  at  the  age  of  almost  eighty-six 
years. 

3.  The.re  are  two  academies  bearing  the  same  name— one  at  Exeter,  founded  by  Honorable  John 
Phillips  ;  the  other  at  Andover,  Massachusetts,  founded  by  Honorable  Samuel  Phillips. 

4.  See  sketch  of  Eleazer  Wheelock, 


DANIEL   WEBSTER. 


277 


as  one  of  the  soundest  lawyers  in  the  State ;  and  during  his  nine  years'  residence 
in  Portsmouth,  he  made  constitutional  law  a  special  study. 

Mr.  Webster  first  appeared  in  public  life,  in  1813,  when  he  took  his  seat  in 
the  House  of  Representatives  at  Washington,  at  the  extra  session  of  the  thir- 
teenth Congress.  It  was  a  most  propitious  moment  for  a  mind  like  Webster's 
to  grapple  with  the  questions  of  State  policy,  for  those  of  the  gravest  character 
were  to  be  then  discussed.  It  was  soon  after  war  was  declared  against  Great 
Britain,  and  the  two  great  political  parties,. Federalists  and  Republicans,  were 
violently  opposed.  Henry  Clay  was  Speaker  of  the  Lower  House,  and  he  im- 
mediately placed  the  new  member  upon  the  very  important  Committee  on  Foreign 
Affairs.  He  made  his  first  speech  on  the  llth  of  June,  1813,  which  at  once 
raised  him  to  the  front  rank  as  a  debater.  His  series  of  speeches,  at  that  time, 
took  the  country  by  surprise,  and  he  became  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the 
Federal  party  in  New  England,  in  and  out  of  Congress.  He  was  reflected  to  a 
seat  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  in  1814,  by  a  large  majority.  At  the  close 
of  the  term  he  resumed  the  practice  of  his  profession;  and,  in  1816,  he  removed 
to  Boston,  because  it  afforded  a  wider  field  for  his  expanding  legal  business.  In 
1817,  he  retired  from  Congress,  and  the  following  year  he  was  employed  in  the 
great  Dartmouth  College  case,  in  which  difficult  constitutional  questions  were 
involved.  His  efforts  in  that  trial  placed  him  at  the  head  of  constitutional  law- 
yers in  New  England,  a  position  which  he  always  held. 


278  GEORGE   WYTHE. 


In  1821,  Mr.  Webster  assisted  in  the  revision  of  the  Constitution  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  he  was  elected  a  representative  of  Boston,  in  Congress,  the  follow- 
ing year.  An  almost  unanimous  vote  reflected  him,  in  1824.  He  was  chosen 
United  States  Senator,  in  1826,  but  did  not  take  his  seat  until  the  Autumn  of 
1828,  on  account  of  severe  domestic  affliction.  In  that  body  he  held  a  front 
rank  for  twelve  consecutive  years.  Probably  the  greatest  contest  in  eloquence, 
logic,  and  statesmanship,  ever  exhibited  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  was 
that  between  Webster  and  Hayne,  of  South  Carolina,  in  1830.  Mr.  Webster 
supported  President  Jackson  against  the  milliners  of  the  South,  in  1832 ;  but  the 
fiscal  policy  of  Jackson  and  Van  Buren  was  always  opposed  by  him.  In  1839, 
he  made  a  brief  tour  through  portions  of  Great  Britain  and  France,  and  returned 
in  time  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  election  canvass  which  resulted  in  the 
choice  of  General  Harrison  for  chief  magistrate  of  the  Republic.  The  new  pres- 
ident made  Mr.  Webster  his  Secretary  of  State,  and  he  was  retained  in  the 
cabinet  of  President  Tyler.  In  1842,  he  negotiated  the  important  treaty  con- 
cerning the  north-eastern  boundary  of  the  United  States,  known  as  the  Ashbur- 
ton  treaty.  In  May,  the  following  year,  Mr.  Webster  retired  to  private  life,  but 
his  constituents  would  not  suffer  him  to  enjoy  coveted  repose.  He  was  again 
sent  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  in  1845,  where  he  opposed  the  war  with 
Mexico,  but  sustained  the  administration  after  hostilities  had  commenced,  by 
voting  supplies.  In  1850,  he  offended  many  of  his  northern  friends  by  his  course 
in  favor  of  the  Compromise  Act,  in  which  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  was  embodied. 
On  the  death  of  President  Taylor,  Mr.  Fillmore,  his  successor,  called  Mr.  Web- 
ster to  his  cabinet  as  Secretary  of  State,  and  he  held  that  responsible  office,  un- 
til his  death,  which  occurred  at  the  mansion  on  his  fine  estate  at  Marshfield,  on 
the  Mth  of  October,  1852,  when  at  the  age  of  almost  seventy-one  years. 


GEORGE    WYTHE. 

IT  is  often  a  great  misfortune  for  a  young  man  to  be  master  of  wealth,  actual 
or  in  expectation,  at  the  moment  of  reaching  his  majority,  for  it  too  fre- 
quently causes  noble  resolves,  aspiring  energies,  and  rugged  will,  born  of  the 
necessity  for  effort,  to  die  within  him,  and  his  manhood  becomes  dwarfed  by 
idleness  or  dissipation.  Such  was  the  dangerous  position  in  which  George 
Wythe,  one  of  Virginia's  most  distinguished  sons,  found  himself,  at  the  age  of 
twenty  years.  He  was  born  in  Elizabeth  county,  in  1726,  of  wealthy  parents, 
and  received  an  excellent  education.  His  father  died  while  the  son  was  a  child, 
and  his  training  devolved  upon  his  accomplished  mother.  Promises  of  great 
moral  and  intellectual  excellences  appeared  when  his  youth  gave  place  to  young 
manhood,  but  at  that  moment  his  mother  died,  and  he  was  left  master  of  a  large 
fortune,  and  his  own  actions.  He  embarked  at  once  upon  the  dangerous  sea  of 
unlawful  pleasure,  and  for  ten  years  of  the  morning  of  life,  he  had  no  higher 
aspirations  than  personal  gratification.  Then,  at  the  age  of  thirty  years,  he  was 
suddenly  reformed.  He  forsook  unprofitable  companions,  turned  to  books,  became 
a  close  student,  prepared  himself  for  the  practice  of  the  law,  and,  in  1757,  was 
admitted  to  the  bar.  Genius  at  once  beamed  out  in  all  his  efforts,  and  he  arose 
rapidly  to  eminence  in  his  profession.  Honor  was  an  every-day  virtue  with  him, 
and  he  was  never  engaged  in  an  unrighteous  cause. 

For  several  years  preceding  the  Revolution,  Mr.  Wythe  was  a  member  of  the 
Virginia  House  of  Burgesses ;  and  during  the  Stamp  Act  excitement  he  stood 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  Henry,  Lee,  Randolph,  and  other  Republicans.  He 


LACHLIN  M'INTOSH.  279 


was  elected  a  delegate  to  the  Continental  Congress,  in  1775,  and  the  following 
year  he  affixed  his  signature,  in  confirmation  of  his  vote,  to  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  During  the  Autumn  of  that  year,  he  was  associated  with  Thomas 
Jefferson  and  Edmund  Randolph,  in  codifying  the  laws  of  Virginia,  to  make 
them  conformable  to  the  newly-organized  republican  government.  The  fol- 
lowing year  he  was  Speaker  of  the  Virginia  Assembly ;  and  he  was  appointed 
the  first  high  chancellor  of  the  State,  when  the  new  judiciary  was  organized. 
That  office  he  held  during  the  remainder  of  his  life,  a  period  of  more  than  twenty 
years. 

Chancellor  Wythe  was  Professor  of  Law  in  William  and  Mary  College,  for 
awhile,  and  was  the  legal  instructor  of  Presidents  Madison  and  Monroe,  and 
Chief  Justice  Marshall.  He  was  a  member  of  the  convention,  in  1786,  out  of 
which  grew  that  of  1787,  in  which  was  formed  the  Federal  Constitution ;  and  in 
the  Virginia  State  Convention  that  ratified  it,  he  was  its  advocate.  Under  that 
instrument  he  was  twice  chosen  United  States  Senator.  Notwithstanding  his 
public  duties  were  multifarious  and  arduous,  he  taught  a  private  school,  for  a 
long  time,  where  instruction  was  free  to  those  who  chose  to  attend.  A  negro 
boy  belonging  to  him  having  exhibited  fine  mental  powers,  he  taught  him  Latin, 
and  was  preparing  to  give  him  a  thorough  classical  education,  when  both  the 
chancellor  and  the  boy  died,  after  partaking  of  some  food  in  which  poison  had 
evidently  been  introduced.  A  near  relative,  accused  of  the  crime,  was  tried  and 
acquitted.  Chancellor  Wythe  died  on  the  8th  of  June,  1800,  in  the  eighty-first 
year  of  his  age. 


LACHLIN    M'INTOSH. 

THHE  compliment  of  being  "the  handsomest  man  in  Georgia,"  at  the  commence- 
JL  ment  of  the  Revolution,  was  bestowed  upon  Lachlin  M'Intosh,  a  native  of 
Scotland.  He  was  born  near  Inverness,  in  1727,  and  was  a  son  of  the  head  of 
the  Borlam  branch  of  the  clan  M'Intosh,  who,  when  Lachlin  was  nine  years  of 
age,  came  to  America  with  General  Oglethorpe.  He  accompanied  that  gentle- 
man in  an  expedition  against  the  Spaniards,  in  Florida,  was  made  prisoner  and 
sent  to  St.  Augustine,  where  he  died;  and  Lachlin,  at  the  age  of  thirteen  years, 
was  left  to  the  care  of  an  excellent  mother.  The  newly -settled  province  afforded 
small  means  for  acquiring  an  education,  and  Mrs.  M'Intosh  was  unable  to  send 
her  son  to  Scotland,  for  the  purpose.  His  naturally  strong  mind,  excited  by  a 
love  for  knowledge,  overcame,  as  usual,  all  difficulties.  Just  as  he  approached 
manhood,  he  went  to  Charleston,  where  his  fine  personal  appearance,  and  the 
remembrance  of  his  father's  military  services  in  Georgia,  procured  him  many 
warm  friends.  Among  these  was  the  noble  John  Laurens,  and  he  entered  that 
gentleman's  counting-room  as  under  clerk.  Disliking  the  inaction  of  commercial 
life  within  doors,  he  left  the  business,  returned  to  his  paternal  estate  and  the 
bosom  of  his  family,  on  the  Alatamaha,  married  a  charming  girl  from  his  native 
country,  and  commenced  the  business  of  a  land-surveyor.  Success  attended  his 
efforts ;  and,  inheriting  the  military  taste  of  his  father,  he  made  himself  fa- 
miliar with  military  tactics,  and  thus  was  prepared  for  the  part  he  was  called 
upon  to  act  in  the  War  for  Independence.  He  was  a  leading  patriot  in  his  sec- 
tion of  Georgia ;  and  when  the  war  broke  out,  he  entered  the  army,  received 
the  commission  of  colonel,  and  was  exceedingly  active  in  the  early  military 
movements  in  that  extreme  Southern  State.  He  was  commissioned  a  brigadier, 
in  1776,  and  a  rivalry  between  himself  arid  Button  Gwinnett,  one  of  the  signers 


280  ROBERT  Y.  HAYNE. 


of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  resulted  in  a  fierce  quarrel,  which  ended  in 
a  duel.  The  challenge  was  given  by  Gwinnett.  Both  were  wounded;  Gwin- 
nett  mortally.  M'Intosh  was  tried  for  murder,  and  acquitted ;  but  the  trouble 
did  not  end  there.  The  feud  spread  among  the  respective  friends  of  the  parties, 
and,  at  one  time,  threatened  serious  consequences  to  the  Republican  cause  at 
the  South.  To  allay  the  bitter  feeling,  M'Intosh  patriotically  consented  to  accept 
a  station  at  the  North,  and  Washington  appointed  him  commander-in-chief  in  the 
"Western  department,  with  his  head-quarters  at  Pittsburg. 

Early  in  1778,  General  M'Intosh  decended  the  Ohio  with  a  considerable  force, 
erected  a  fort  thirty  miles  below  Pittsburg,  and  after  considerable  delay,  ho 
marched  toward  the  Sandusky  towns  in  the  interior  of  Ohio,  to  chastise  the 
hostile  Indians.  The  expedition  accomplished  but  little,  except  the  building  of 
another  fort  near  the  present  village  of  Bolivia,  which  M'Intosh  named  Laurens, 
in  honor  of  his  old  employer,  then  president  of  Congress.  He  returned  to  Geor- 
gia, in  1779,  and  was  second  in  command  to  Lincoln  at  the  siege  of  Savannah, 
in  October  of  that  year.  He  remained  with  Lincoln  during  the  following  Winter 
and  Spring,  and  was  made  a  prisoner,  with  the  rest  of  the  Southern  army,  on 
the  surrender  of  Charleston,  in  May,  1780.  After  his  release,  he  went,  with  his 
family,  to  Virginia,  where  he  remained  until  the  close  of  the  war.  Then  he 
returned  to  Georgia,  a  poor  man,  for  his  little  estate  was  almost  wasted.  He 
lived  in  retirement  and  comparative  poverty,  in  Savannah,  until  1806,  when  he 
died,  at  the  age  of  seventy-nine  years. 


ROBERT    Y.    HAYNE. 

THE  names  of  Daniel  Webster  and  Robert  Y.  Hayne  will  ever  be  associated  in 
the  legislative  annals  of  the  Republic,  because  their  great  debate  in  the 
United  States  Senate,  in  1830,  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  for  logic  and 
eloquence  which  ever  occurred  in  that  body.  Hayne  was  more  than  nine  years 
the  junior  of  his  powerful  New  England  antagonist,  having  been  born  on  tho 
10th  of  November,  1791,  near  Charleston,  South  Carolina.  His  education  was 
obtained  at  a  grammar-school  in  Charleston,  and  at  the  age  of  seventeen  years 
he  commenced  the  study  of  law  under  the  direction  of  the  since  eminent  jurist 
and  statesman,  Langdon  Cheves.  Ho  had  not  yet  reached  his  majority,  when 
the  clouds  of  impending  war  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain 
gathered  darkly.  Having  secured  his  admission  to  tho  bar,  he  volunteered  his 
services,  early  in  1812,  for  the  military  defence  of  tho  sea-board,  and  entered  the 
army  as  lieutenant.  He  arose  rapidly  to  the  rank  of  major-general  of  his  State  mi- 
litia, and  was  considered  one  of  the  best  disciplinarians  in  the  South.  On  receiving 
an  honorable  discharge,  General  Hayne  retired  to  Charleston,  and  commenced 
the  practice  of  law  as  a  means  of  procuring  a  livelihood.  At  about  that  time, 
Mr.  Cheves  had  accepted  a  seat  in  Congress,  and  Mr.  Hayne  had  the  advantage 
of  securing  much  of  his  practice.  Before  he  was  twenty-two  years  of  age  his 
business  was  very  extensive ;  and  from  that  time  until  his  death,  his  practice 
was  probably  greater  and  more  lucrative  than  that  of  any  lawyer  in  South 
Carolina. 

Mr.  Hayne  first  appeared  as  a  legislator,  in  1814,  when  he  was  elected  to  a 
seat  in  the  South  Carolina  Assembly.  There  he  was  distinguished  for  his  elo- 
quence,1 and  his  firm  support  of  President  Madison's  administration,  in  its  war 

1.  Mr.  Hayne'  a  first  effort  at  oratory  was  an  oration  on  the  4th  of  July,  1812,  at  Fort  Moultrie,  which 
won  for  him  great  applause,  and  gave  promise  of  his  future  brilliancy  as  a  public  speaker.  It  is  worthy 


ROBERT   Y.  HAYNE. 


281 


measures.  In  1818,  he  was  chosen  Speaker  of  the  Assembly;  and  the  same 
year  he  received  the  appointment  of  attorney-general  for  the  State.  In  every 
duty  to  which  he  was  called,  young  Hayne  acquitted  himself  nobly ;  and  the 
moment  he  had  reached  an  eligible  age,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States,  where,  for  ten  years,  he  represented  South  Carolina  with 
rare  ability.  He  was  an  ever-vigilant  watchman  upon  the  citadel  of  State  Rights, 
and  as  a  member  of  the  famous  "Union  and  State  Rights  Convention,"  held 
toward  the  close  of  1832,  he  was  chairman  of  the  committee  of  twenty-one  who 
reported  the  "ordinance  of  nullification,"  which  alarmed  the  country,  and  called 
forth  President  Jackson's  puissant  proclamation.  Like  his  great  coadjutor,  Mr. 
Calhoun,  General  Hayne  was  sincere  and  honest  in  the  support  of  his  views,  and 
always  commanded  the  highest  respect  of  his  political  opponents. 

About  a  fortnight  after  the  adoption  of  the  celebrated  "  ordinance,"  General 
Hayne  was  chosen  governor  of  the  State,  and  a  few  days  after  President  Jack- 
son's proclamation  reached  him,  he  issued  a  counter-manifesto,  full  of  defiance. 
Civil  war  seemed  inevitable,  but  the  compromise  measures  proposed  by  Mr. 
Clay,  and  adopted  by  Congress  early  in  1833,  averted  the  menaced  evil.  Gov- 
ernor Hayne  filled  the  executive  chair,  with  great  energy,  until  1834;  and,  on 


of  remark,  that  his  election  lo  the  South  Carolina  Assembly,  at  the  head  of  thirty-one  candidates,  by  a 
larger  vote  than  any  individual  had  ever  received,  in  a  contested  election,  in  Charleston,  was  an  evidence 
of  his  great  popularity.  He  was  then  not  twenty -three  years  of  age. 


282  RALPH   IZARD. 


retiring  from  that  exalted  office,  he  was  elected  mayor  of  Charleston.  His  at- 
tention was  now  specially  turned  to  the  great  subject  of  internal  improvements ; 
and,  in  1837,  he  was  elected  president  of  the  "  Charleston,  Louisville,  and  Cincin- 
nati Rail  Road  Company."  Ho  held  that  office  until  his  death,  which  occurred 
at  Ashville,  North  Carolina,  on  the  24th  of  September,  1841,  when  in  the  fiftieth 
year  of  his  age.  Governor  Hayne  may  bo  ranked  among  the  purest-minded  men 
of  his  age. 


RALPH    IZARD. 

IN  the  year  1 844,  a  daughter  of  Ralph  Izard,  one  of  the  noblest  of  the  sons  of 
South  Carolina,  published  a  brief  memoir  of  him,  attached  to  a  volume  of 
his  correspondence,  and  accompanied  by  a  portrait,  under  which  is  the  appropri- 
ate motto,  "  An  honest  man's  the  noblest  work  of  God."  Ralph  Izard  was  en- 
titled to  that  motto,  for  few  men  have  passed  the  ordeal  of  public  life  with  more 
honor  and  purity  than  he.  He  was  born  in  1742,  at  the  family-estate  called 
The  Elms,  about  seventeen  miles  from  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  and  at  a  very 
early  age  was  sent  to  England  to  be  educated.  Ho  pursued  preparatory  studies 
at  Hackney,  and  completed  his  education  at  Christ  College,  Cambridge.  On 
arriving  at  his  majority,  he  returned  to  America,  took  possession  of  his  ample 
fortune  left  by  his  father,  and.  having  no  taste  for  the  professions,  he  divided  his 
time  between  literary  and  agricultural  pursuits,  and  the  pleasures  of  fashionable 
life.  He  passed  much  of  his  time,  in  early  life,  with  James  De  Lancey,  then 
lieutenant-governor  of  the  province  of  New  York,  and  married  his  niece,  a 
daughter  of  Peter  De  Lancey,  of  Westchester  county,  in  1767.  In  1771,  they 
went  to  London,  and  occupied  a  pleasant  house  there,  for  some  time,  in  the  en- 
joyment of  the  best  intellectual  society  of  the  metropolis.  His  ample  fortune 
allowed  the  indulgence  of  a  fine  taste,  and  books,  painting,  and  music,  were  his 
chief  delight.  Yet  he  possessed  a  thoroughly  republican  spirit,  and  refused 
offers  to  be  presented  to  court,  because  etiquette  would  compel  him  to  bow  the 
knee  to  the  king  and  queen.  He  watched  the  course  of  political  events  with 
great  interest;  and  finally,  in  1774,  the  excitement  in  London  on  the  subject  of 
American  affairs  so  troubled  him,  that  he  went  to  the  Continent  with  his  wife, 
and  travelled  many  months.  But  everywhere  the  apparition  of  his  bleeding  and 
beloved  country  followed  him,  and  he  resolved  to  return  home  and  engage  in 
the  impending  conflicts.  He  returned  to  England,  and  there  used  all  his  efforts 
to  enlighten  the  ministry  concerning  the  temper  of  his  countrymen,  but  to  little 
purpose. 

War  commenced,  and,  finding  it  difficult  to  return  to  America,  he  went  to 
France,  in  1777,  when  Congress  appointed  him  commissioner  to  the  Tuscan 
court.  Circumstances  prevented  his  presenting  himself  to  the  Duke  of  Tuscany, 
for  a  long  time,  and  he  asked  permission  of  Congress  to  resign  his  commission 
and  return  home.  In  the  meanwhile  the  false  representations  of  Silas  Deane 
had  induced  Congress  to  recal  him.  That  body  afterward  made  ample  amends 
for  the  injustice.  He  remained  in  Paris  until  1780,  and  in  the  meanwhile  had 
served  his  country  efficiently  in  many  ways,  officially  and  unofficially.  On  one 
occasion  he  pledged  his  whole  estate  as  security  for  funds  needed  by  Commodore 
Gillon,  who  had  been  sent  from  South  Carolina  to  Europe,  to  purchase  frigates. 

On  his  return  to  America,  in  1780,  Mr.  Izard  immediately  repaired  to  the 
head-quarters  of  Washington,  and  was  there  when  the  treason  of  Arnold  was 
discovered.  It  is  evident  from  his  correspondence  that  he  was  chiefly  instru- 


BENJAMIN  PIEKCE.  283 


mental  in  procuring  the  appointment  of  General  Greene  to  the  command  of  the 
Southern  army,  toward  the  close  of  that  year.  For  that  service  he  received  the 
thanks  of  the  governor  of  South  Carolina.  Early  in  1781,  he  was  elected  to  a 
seat  in  the  Continental  Congress,  where  he  remained  until  peace  was  established. 
Then  he  was  joined  by  his  family,  whom  he  had  left  in  France,  and  he  retired 
to  his  estate  to  enjoy  the  repose  of  domestic  life.  His  countrymen  would  not 
allow  him  to  be  inactive,  and  he  was  chosen  the  first  United  States  Senator  from 
South  Carolina,  for  the  full  term  of  six  years,  during  which  time  he  was  a  firm 
supporter  of  the  administration  of  President  Washington.  In  1795,  he  took  final 
leave  of  public  life,  and  once  more  sought  repose,  with  the  pleasant  anticipations 
of  many  years  of  earthly  happiness.  But  two  years  afterward  he  was  suddenly 
prostrated  by  paralysis.  His  intellect  was  mercifully  spared,  and  ho  lived  in 
comparative  comfort  until  the  30th  of  May,  1804,  when  he  expired,  at  the  age 
of  sixty-two  years.  A  tablet  was  placed  to  his  memory  in  the  parish  church  of 
St.  James,  Goose  Creek,  near  his  paternal  seat — The  Elms. 


BENJAMIN    PIERCE. 

THE  career  of  Benjamin  Pierce,  the  father  of  the  fourteenth  President  of  the 
United  States,  affords  a  noble  example  of  true  manhood  in  private  and 
public  life,  which  the  young  men  of  our  Republic  ought  to  study  and  imitate. 
It  is  an  example  of  perseverance  in  well-doing  for  self,  friends,  and  country, 
being  rewarded  by  a  conscience  void  of  offence,  a  long  life,  and  the  love  and 
honor  of  fellow-men.  In  these  lies  hidden  the  priceless  pearl  of  earthly  happi- 
ness. 

Benjamin  Pierce  was  descended  from  ancestors  who  settled  at  Plymouth, 
Massachusetts,  three  years  after  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  first  landed  on  that  snowy 
beach.1  He  was  the  seventh  of  ten  children,  and  was  born  in  Chelmsford,  Mas- 
sachusetts, on  Christmas  day,  1757.  He  was  left  fatherless  at  the  age  of  six 
years,  and  was  placed  under  the  guardianship  of  a  paternal  uncle.  His  oppor- 
tunities for  education  were  small,  but  the  lad,  possessing  a  naturally  vigorous 
intellect,  improved  those  opportunities  with  parsimonious  assiduity.  His  body 
was  invigorated  by  farm-labor;  and  when,  at  the  age  of  seventeen  years,  the 
first  gun  of  the  Revolution  at  Lexington  echoed  among  the  New  England  hills, 
and  he  armed  for  the  battle-fields  of  freedom,  young  Pierce  was  fitted,  morally 
and  physically,  for  a  soldier  of  truest  stamp.  He  hastened  to  Lexington,  pushed 
on  to  Cambridge,  and  six  days  after  the  retreat  of  the  British  troops  from  Con- 
cord, he  was  enrolled  in  Captain  Ford's  company  as  a  regular  soldier.  He  fought 
bravely  on  Breed's  Hill  seven  weeks  afterward ;  was  faithful  in  camp  and  on 
guard  until  the  British  were  driven  from  Boston,  in  the  Spring  of  1776 ;  followed 
the  fortunes  of  Washington  during  the  ensuing  campaigns  of  that  year,  and  was 
orderly  sergeant  of  his  company,  before  he  was  twenty  years  of  age,  in  the  glo- 
rious conflicts  which  resulted  in  the  capture  of  Burgoyne  at  Saratoga,  in  the 
Autumn  of  1777.  His  valor  there  won  for  him  the  commission  of  ensign.  The 
young  man  who  bore  that  commission  and  the  American  flag,  in  the  hottest  of 
the  fight,  was  killed.  Young  Pierce  rushed  forward,  seized  the  banner,  and 

1.  The  facts  in  this  brief  sketch  of  the  life  of  Governor  Pierce  are  gleaned  from  a  well-written  biog:- 
raphy,  from  the  pen  of  the  Honorable  C.  E.  Potter,  editor  of  The  Farmer's  Monthly  Visitor,  published 
at  Manchester,  New  Hampshire.  It  appears  in  the  number  for  July,  1852,  accompanied  by  an  accurate 
portrait  of  Governor  Pierce. 


284  BENJAMIN  PIEECE. 

bore  it  triumphantly  to  the  American  lines,  amid  the  shouts  of  his  companions. 
He  remained  in  service  during  the  whole  war,  and  reached  the  rank  of  captain. 
When  the  American  troops  entered  the  city  of  New  York,  in  the  Autumn  of 
1783,  Captain  Pierce  commanded  the  detachment  sent  to  take  possession  of  the 
military  works  at  Brooklyn.  This  was  the  concluding  act  of  his  services  in  the 
Continental  army,  and  a  few  weeks  afterward  he  returned  to  Chelmsford,  after 
an  absence  of  almost  nine  years. 

The  war  left  young  Pierce  as  it  found  him,  a  true  patriot,  but  penniless,  for 
the  Continental  paper-money,  in  which  he  had  been  paid,  had  become  worthless. 
Yet  he  was  rich  in  the  glorious  experience  of  endurance  under  hardships ;  and 
entering  the  service  of  a  large  landholder,  it  was  not  long  before  he  owned  a 
small  tract  of  land  in  the  southern  part  of  Hillsborough,  New  Hampshire,  where- 
on he  built  a  log-hut,  and  commenced  a  clearing,  in  the  Spring  of  1786.  He 
was  unmarried,  and  lived  alone.  Labor  sweetened  his  coarse  food  and  deepened 
his  slumbers.  He  cultivated  social  relations  with  the  scattered  population  around 
him;  and,  in  the  Autumn  of  1786,  the  governor  of  New  Hampshire  appointed 
him  brigade-major  of  his  district.  In  blooming  May,  the  following  year,  he  mar- 
ried. Fifteen  months  afterward  death  took  his  companion  from  him,  and  he  was 
left  with  an  infanf  daughter,  now  [1855]  the  widow  of  General  John  M'Neil. 
He  married  again  in  1789,  and  the  union  continued  almost  fifty  years.1  At 
about  the  same  time  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  New  Hampshire  legislature, 
and  was  promoted  to  the  command  of  a  regiment.  When,  in  1798,  Congress 
authorized  the  raising  of  a  provisional  army,  in  expectation  of  war  with  France, 
Colonel  Pierce  was  offered  the  same  commission  in  the  regular  service,  but  he 
declined  it.  In  1803,  he  was  elected  to  the  council  of  his  State,  and  retained 
that  office  by  reelection  until  1809,  when  he  was  appointed  sheriff  of  the  county 
of  Hillsborough.  The  governor  had  already  commissioned  him  a  brigadier- 
general  of  the  militia,  in  which  position  he  acquitted  himself  with  great  dignity 
and  honor. 

General  Pierce  held  the  office  of  sheriff  until  1813,  when  he  was  again  made 
a  member  of  the  council.  After  five  years'  service  there,  he  was  again  elected 
sheriff;  and  no  man  ever  performed  official  duties  in  a  manner  more  acceptable 
to  the  public  than  he.  In  1827,  he  was  chosen  governor  of  New  Hampshire; 
and,  in  1829,  he  was  again  called  to  the  same  station.  Three  years  afterward 
he  held  his  last  public  office.  It  was  in  the  Autumn  of  1832,  when  he  was 
chosen,  by  the  democratic  party,  a  presidential  elector.  When  the  duties  of  that 
office  were  ended,  he  sought  repose  upon  his  farm  at  Hillsborough,  after  having 
been  engaged  in  the  public  service  almost  continually  for  fifty-five  years.  A 
partial  paralysis  of  the  system  prostrated  him,  in  1837,  but  he  was  not  confined 
to  his  room  until  November,  1838.  From  that  time  he  suffered  intensely  until 
mercifully  relieved  by  death,  on  the  1st  of  April,  1839,  in  the  eighty-second  year 
of  his  age. 

We  cannot  too  reverently  cherish  the  remembrance  of  such  men.  Yery  few 
yet  linger  on  the  shores  of  Time.2 

"  Oh !  honored  be  each  silvery  hair  ! 
Each  furrow  trenched  by  toil  and  care  ! 
And  sacred  each  old  bending  form 
That  braved  oppression's  battle  storm." 

1.  His  second  wife,  mother  of  President  Pierce,  died  in  December,  1838,  a  few  months  before  the  de- 
parture of  her  honored  husband. 

2.  It  was  estimated  that  at  the  close  of  1854,  not  more  than  one  thousand  of  the  two  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  of  the  Continental  soldiers,  and  the  fifty-six  thousand  militia,  who  bore  arms  during  the  war, 
remained  among  us. 


HARRIET   NEWELL. 


285 


HARRIET    NEWELL. 

rbo  a  martyr  in  any  cause  requires  the  truest  elements  of  heroism.  To  for- 
sake country,  friends,  and  the  enjoyments  of  civilization  at  the  bidding  of 
an  emotion  born  of  a  great  principle,  to  do  good  for  others,  is  an  act  of  heroism 
of  which  those  whom  the  world  delights  to  honor  as  its  great  heroes,  have  very 
little  appreciation.  But  such  is  the  heroism  which  makes  faithful  Christian 
missionaries,  moved  by  an  emotion  of  highest  benevolence  to  do  good  to  the 
souls  and  bodies  of  men.  Of  the  "  noble  army  of  martyrs,"  she  who  was  ever 
known  in  girlhood  as  "sweet  little  Hatty  At  wood,"  became  a  bright  example 
of  faith  and  self-denial.  She  performed  no  important  service  on  the  missionary 
field  of  action ;  indeed,  she  had  barely  entered  upon  its  verge  and  heard  the  cry 
of  the  heathen  for  help,  when  she  was  called  to  another  sphere  of  life.  But  she 
was  one  of  the  earliest,  purest,  most  lovely  of  those  who  went  from  America  to 
India,  bearing  to  the  dark  chambers  of  paganism  there,  the  candle  of  the  Lord 
God  Omnipotent.  Her  example  is  her  glory. 

Harriet  Atwood  was  born  in  Haverhill,  Massachusetts,  on  the  10th  of  October, 
1793.  She  was  blessed  with  a  sweet  disposition,  and  was  always  a  favorite 
with  her  playmates.  Studious  and  thoughtful  from  early  childhood,  her  mind 
was  naturally  imbued  with  an  abiding  sense  of  the  good  and  the  true,  which 
form  the  basis  of  sound  religious  character.  At  the  age  of  thirteen  years,  while 
at  the  academy  in  Bradford,  Massachusetts,  she  became  more  deeply  impressed 
with  the  importance  of  religious  things,  than  ever.  She  withdrew  from  the  com- 


286  ANTHONY  WAYNE. 


pany  of  frivolous  persons,  read  religious  books  and  her  Bible  much  of  her  leisure 
time;  and,  in  1809,  when  not  yet  sixteen  years  of  age,  she  made  an  open  pro- 
fession of  Christianity.  In  the  Winter  of  1811,  she  became  acquainted  with  Mr. 
Newell,  her  future  husband.  He  was  preparing  for  missionary  service  in  India, 
and  in  April  following,  he  asked  her  companionship  as  wife  and  co-worker  in 
the  distant  land  to  which  he  was  going.  The  conflicts  of  that  young  spirit  with 
the  allurements  of  home,  friends,  and  personal  ease,  was  severe  but  short.  She 
consented ;  and,  with  the  blessings  of  her  widowed  mother,  she  was  married,  in 
February,  1812,  and  the  same  month  sailed  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Judson,  and  others, 
for  India.  On  account  of  hostilities  then  progressing  between  the  United  States 
and  England,  this  little  band  of  soldiers,  under  the  banner  of  the  Prince  of 
Peace,  were  not  permitted  to  remain  at  Calcutta,  so  they  took  their  departure 
for  the  Isle  of  France.  They  reached  it  after  a  voyage  of  great  peril,  toward  the 
close  of  Summer.  A  few  weeks  afterward  Mrs.  Newell  gave  birth  to  a  daughter. 
The  delicate  flower  was  plucked  from  its  equally  delicate  stem,  by  the  Angel  of 
Death,  five  days  after  it  had  expanded  in  the  atmosphere  of  earth,  and  its  spirit 
was  exhaled  as  sweet  incense  to  Heaven.  The  mother  soon  followed.  Hered- 
itary consumption  was  the  canker  at  the  root  of  life,  and  on  the  30th  of  Novem- 
ber, 1812,  that  lovely  Christian's  head  was  piDowed  upon  the  bosom  of  mother 
earth.  She  was  then  only  nineteen  years  of  age.  Her  widowed  mother,  who 
wept  over  her  at  parting,  lived  on  in  humble  resignation  for  more  than  forty 
years.  She  died  in  Boston,  in  July,  1853,  at  the  age  of  eighty-four  years. 


ANTHONY    WAYNE. 

THE  fearless  courage  and  desperate  energy  of  General  Anthony  Wayne  ob- 
tained for  him,  among  his  countrymen,  the  title  of  "Mad  Anthony;"  and 
some  of  his  exploits  entitle  him  to  the  distinction.  He  was  born  in  Easttown, 
Chester  county,  Pennsylvania,  on  the  1st  of  January,  1745.  He  was  educated 
with  considerable  care,  in  Philadelphia,  became  proficient  in  mathematics,  and 
commenced  the  business  of  surveying,  in  his  native  town,  at  the  age  of  about 
eighteen  years.  Skill  and  popularity  in  his  profession  soon  established  his  repu- 
tation permanently;  and,  in  1765,  when  only  twenty  years  of  age,  he  was  sent 
by  a  company  of  gentlemen  to  locate  lands  for  them  in  Nova  Scotia.  They  made 
him  superintendent  of  the  settlement,  but  after  remaining  there  about  two  years, 
he  returned  home,  married,  and  resumed  his  business  of  surveyor,  in  his  native 
county.  His  talent  attracted  general  attention;  and,  in  1773,  he  was  elected  to 
a  seat  in  the  Pennsylvania  Assembly.  He  continued  in  that  service  until  1775, 
when  he  left  the  council  for  the  field,  having  been  appointed  colonel  in  the 
Continental  army.  He  accompanied  General  Thomas  to  Canada,  in  the  Spring 
of  1776,  and  at  the  close  of  service  there,  he  was  promoted  to  brigadier.  After 
a  year  of  active  service,  he  was  engaged  efficiently  with  the  commander-in-chief 
in  the  battles  at  Brandy  wine,1  Grermantown,  and  Monmouth,  in  all  of  which  his 
skill  and  valor  were  conspicuous.  In  1779,  he  made  a  night  attack  upon  the 
strong  fortress  at  Stony  Point,  on  the  Hudson,  and  the  entire  garrison  were  made 
prisoners.  It  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  achievements  of  the  war,  and  Con- 
gress rewarded  him  with  its  thanks,  and  a  gold  medal.  It  made  him  the  most 

1.  While  encamped  near  the  Paoli  tavern,  in  Chester  county,  Pennsylvania,  after  the  battle  at  Bran- 
dy-wine, his  command  was  attacked  at  midnifrht,  by  a  strong  force  of  British  and  Hessians,  under  Gen 
-eral  Grey,  and  many  of  them  were  killed.  Over  the  spot  where  they  were  buried,  a  neat  marble  monu- 
ment stands.  See  sketch  of  the  Reverend  David  Jones. 


MAEQUIS  DE  LA  FAYETTE.  287 

popular  man  in  the  army,  below  the  commander-in-chief,  and  his  praises  were 
spoken  in  every  part  of  the  land. 

In  1781,  General  Wayne  proceeded,  with  the  Pennsylvania  line,  to  Virginia, 
and  there  cooperated  with  La  Fayette  and  Baron  Steuben  against  Arnold,  the 
traitor,  who  had  invaded  that  State.  "Wayne's  retreat  at  Jamestown,  when  al- 
most surrounded  by  the  British  troops,  was  one  of  the  most  masterly  perform- 
ances ever  accomplished.  In  the  siege  of  Yorktown,  he  performed  many  deeds 
of  great  valor,  and  after  participating  in  the  joy  of  the  great  victory  there,  he 
proceeded  southward,  to  prosecute  the  war  in  Georgia.  He  kept  the  British 
within  their  lines  at  Savannah  until  they  were  compelled  to  evacuate  the  State, 
and  then  "Wayne,  in  triumph,  took  possession  of  the  capital.  For  his  great 
services  there,  the  legislature  of  Georgia  made  him  a  present  of  a  valuable  farm. 
On  retiring  from  the  army,  he  took  up  his  abode  in  his  native  county.  In  1788, 
he  was  a  member  of  the  Pennsylvania  convention,  called  to  consider  the  Federal 
Constitution,  and  was  its  earnest  advocate.  In  1792,  he  was  appointed  to  suc- 
ceed St.  Clair  in  the  command  of  troops  in  the  Ohio  country,  and  after  prosecut- 
ing war  against  the  Indians,  with  great  vigor,  he  gained  a  decided  victory  over 
them,  in  August,  1794.  A  year  afterward  he  concluded  a  treaty  of  peace  with 
the  North-western  tribes,  at  Greenville,  and  thus  terminated  the  war.  On  his 
return  home,  he  was  seized  with  gout,  and  died  in  a  hut  at  Presque  Isle  (now 
Erie,  Pennsylvania),  in  December,  1796,  at  the  age  of  fifty-one  years.  According 
to  his  request,  he  was  buried  under  the  flag-staff  of  the  fort  on  the  shore  of 
Lake  Erie.  In  1809,  his  son,  Isaac,  had  his  body  removed  to  Radnor  church- 
yard, Delaware  county,  Pennsylvania,  and  over  it  the  Pennsylvania  Society  of 
the  Cincinnati  erected  a  handsome  marble  monument,  with  suitable  inscriptions, 
the  same  year. 


MARQUIS    DE    LA    FAYETTE. 

T^IOSE  cosmopolitan  lovers  of  liberty,  who  came  from  Europe  to  assist  the 
JL  colonists  in  their  struggles  for  freedom  and  independence,  are  so  identified 
with  the  founders  of  our  Republic,  that  each  deserves  a  noble  cenotaph  to  his 
memory.  In  an  especial  mariner  ought  Americans  to  reverence  the  name  and 
deeds  of  La  Fayette,  who,  fifty  years  after  the  contest  in  which  he  had  aided  us 
had  closed,  came  to  behold  the  glorious  superstructure  of  free  institutions 
which  had  been  reared  upon  the  consecrated  foundation  that  he  had  helped  to 
plant. 

Gilbert  Mottier,1  Marquis  de  La  Fayette,  was  a  native  of  France,  where  he 
was  born  on  the  6th  of  September,  1757.  He  belonged  to  one  of  the  most  an- 
cient of  the  modern  French  nobility,  and  received  an  education  compatible  with 
his  station.  When  a  little  more  than  seventeen  years  of  age  he  married  the 
Countess  de  Noailles,  daughter  of  the  Due  de  Noailles,  a  beautiful  young  lady 
about  his  own  age,  and  the  possessor  of  an  immense  fortune.  In  the  Summer 
of  1776,  he  was  stationed,  with  the  military  corps  to  which  he  belonged,  near 
the  town  of  Mentz.  He  was  an  officer  in  the  French  army,  though  only  eighteen 
years  of  age.  At  a  dinner-party,  where  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  brother  of  the 
King  of  England,  was  the  guest  on  the  occasion,  he  heard  of  the  struggles  of 
the  far-off  American  colonies,  and  their  noble  Declaration  of  Independence.  He 
heard,  with  indignation,  of  the  employment  of  German  troops  and  other  strong 


].  In  the  Biographie  des  Hommes  his  name  is  written  Maria-Paul-Joseph-Rock-Yves-Gilbert-Mottiers 
de  la  Fayette. 


288  MAEQUIS  DE   LA  FAYETTE. 

measures  employed  by  England  to  enslave  that  struggling  people,  and  his  young 
soul  burned  with  a  desire  to  aid  them.  He  left  the  army,  returned  to  Paris, 
offered  his  services  to  the  American  commissioners,  fitted  out  a  vessel  at  his  own 
expense,  and,  with  Baron  de  Kalb  and  other  European  officers,  sailed  for  Amer- 
ica. They  arrived  at  Georgetown,  South  Carolina,  in  April,  1777,  and  La  Fayette 
hastened,  by  land,  to  Philadelphia.  Congress,  after  some  hesitation,  accepted 
his  services,  and  he  entered  the  army  under  Washington,  as  a  volunteer,  but 
bearing  the  honorary  title  of  major-general,  conferred  upon  him  by  the  national 
legislature,  in  July.  His  first  battle  was  on  the  Brandywine,  where  he  was 
severely  wounded  in  the  knee,  and  was  nursed,  for  some  time,  by  the  Moravian 
sisters  at  Bethlehem,  in  Pennsylvania.  He  was  in  the  battle  at  Monmouth,  the 
following  Summer,  and  was  active  in  Rhode  Island. 

In  October,  1778,  La  Fayette  obtained  leave  to  return  to  France,  and  Congress 
ordered  the  American  minister  in  Paris  to  present  him  an  elegant  sword,  in  the 
name  of  the  United  States  of  America,  There  he  remained  until  the  Spring  of 
1780,  when  he  returned  with  the  joyful  intelligence  of  the  on-coming  of  a  French 
army  and  navy  to  assist  the  struggling  colonists.  He  was  in  active  and  con- 
tinual service  hero  until  the  capture  of  Cornwallis  and  his  army,  at  Yorktown, 
in  the  Autumn  of  1781.  In  that  achievement  he  performed  a  gallant  part,  as 
well  as  in  the  events  in  Virginia,  immediately  preceding.  Soon  after  the  capit- 
ulation at  Yorktown,  he  returned  to  France,  and,  by  his  own  exertions,  was 
raising  a  large  army  there  for  service  in  America,  when  intelligence  of  peace 
reached  him.  In  1784,  he  visited  America,  and  was  every  where  received  with 
the  greatest  enthusiasm  by  his  old  companions-in-arms.  With  the  blessing  of  a 
free  people,  he  again  returned  to  his  native  country,  and  from  that  time  until 
the  death  of  Washington,  those  two  great  men  were  in  affectionate  correspond- 
ence. 

La  Fayette  took  an  active  part  in  the  politics  of  France,  when  the  great  Reve- 
lation there  approached.  He  was  an  active  member  of  the  Legislative  Assem- 
bly, where,  amidst  the  intense  radicalism  of  the  theoretical  democrats,  he  was  a 
fjrvent  but  conservative  advocate  of  republicanism.  Because  of  his  moderation 
he  was  suspected,  and  he  fled  from  France  to  avoid  the  fate  of  many  good  men 
who  lost  their  heads  during  the  Reign  of  Terror.  He  did  not  entirely  escape, 
but  was  seized  and  kept  a  prisoner  in  a  dungeon  at  Olmutz,  in  Germany,  during 
three  years,  where  he  endured  great  personal  suffering.  After  his  release,  he 
lived  in  comparative  retirement  with  his  devoted  wife  (on  whom  his  misfortunes 
had  fallen  heavily)  until  1814,  when  the  first  downfall  of  Napoleon,  whom  he 
hated,  brought  him  again  into  public  life.  In  1815,  he  was  a  member  of  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies,  and  in  that  assembly  he  offered  the  resolution  for  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  committee  to  demand  the  abdication  of  the  Emperor.  He  was 
again  a  member  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  in  1818.  Six  years  afterward  he 
was  invited  to  visit  the  United  States  as  the  guest  of  the  nation;  and,  in  1824, 
the  American  frigate  Brandywine  (so  named  in  his  honor)  conveyed  him  to  our 
shores.  His  journey  through  the  different  States  was  a  continual  ovation,  and 
every  where  the  surviving  soldiers  of  the  Revolution  flocked  to  greet  the  "  dear 
Marquis."  In  the  Republican  movements  in  France,  in  1830,  which  dethroned 
Charles  the  Tenth,  La  Fayette  took  a  conspicuous  part,  and,  nobly  refusing  the 
chief  magistracy  of  his  nation,  which  the  people  and  the  legislature  offered  him, 
he  indicated  the  head  of  Louis  Philippe,  of  the  Orleans  family,  as  the  proper  one 
for  the  French  crown.  Afterward  that  ungrateful  monarch  treated  La  Fayette 
with  coldness  and  disdain.  In  1834,  that  venerated  patriot  of  two  hemispheres 
went  to  his  rest,  at  the  age  of  seventy-sovcn  years. 


JOSEPH   STORY. 


289 


JOSEPH    STORY. 

"  11711  ATE  VER  subject  ho  touched  was  touched  with  a  master's  hand  and 
IT  spirit.  He  employed  his  eloquence  to  adorn  his  learning,  and  his  learn- 
ing to  give  solid  weight  to  his  eloquence.  He  was  always  instructive  and  in- 
teresting, and  rarely  without  producing  an  instantaneous  conviction.  A  lofty 
ambition  of  excellence,  that  stirring  spirit  which  breathes  the  breath  of  Heaven, 
and  pants  for  immortality,  sustained  his  genius  in  its  perilous  course."  These 
were  the  beautiful  words  of  Judge  Story  when  speaking  of  a  noble  companion 
in  profession  who  had  just  passed  from  earth,  and  they  may,  with  earnest  truth, 
be  applied  to  the  now  departed  jurist  himself. 

Joseph  Story  was  born  at  Marblehead,  Massachusetts,  on  the  1 8th  of  Septem- 
ber, 1779.  He  pursued  academic  studies  under  the  Rev.  Dr.  Harris  (afterward 
president  of  Columbia  College,  New  York),  and  entered  Harvard  University,  as 
a  student,  in  1795.  He  was  graduated  there  in  1798,  studied  law,  was  admitted 
to  the  bar,  in  1801,  and  made  Salem  his  place  of  residence  and  professional  prac- 
tice. His  fine  talent  was  speedily  appreciated,  and  he  soon  possessed  an  exten- 
sive and  lucrative  practice.  He  was  often  opposed  to  the  most  eminent  lawyers 
of  the  day,  who  wer3  Federalists,  he  having  become  attached  to  the  Democratic 
party  at  the  commencement  of  his  professional  career.  In  1805,  he  was  chosen 
to  represent  Salem  in  the  Massachusetts  legislature,  and  was  annually  reelected 

13 


290  CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 

to  that  station  until  1811,  when  he  was  appointed  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States.  In  the  meanwhile  (1809-10)  he  had  served  a  few  months 
in  the  Federal  Congress,  as  representative  of  the  district  in  which  he  resided. 
During  that  brief  congressional  career,  he  was  distinguished  for  his  talent  and 
energy,  especially  in  his  efforts  to  obtain  a  repeal  of  the  famous  Embargo  Act. 
Mr.  Jefferson  regarded  Mr.  Story  as  the  chief  instrument  in  procuring  the  repeal 
of  that  act,  so  obnoxious  in  its  operations  upon  the  commerce  and  manufactures 
of  New  England.1 

Mr.  Story  was  only  thirty-two  years  of  age  when  President  Madison  made 
him  an  associate  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  and  from  that 
time  he  discarded  party  politics,  and  labored  incessantly  to  become  eminently 
useful  as  a  jurist.  He  was  a  worthy  coadjutor  of  the  illustrious  Marshall,  and  in 
commercial  and  constitutional  law  he  had  no  peer  upon  the  bench  of  the  Federal 
judiciary.  In  1820,  Judge  Story  was  a  member  of  the  convention  that  revised 
the  constitution  of  Massachusetts,  and  distinguished  himself  by  eloquent  ex- 
pressions of  the  most  liberal  sentiments.  In  1829,  Mr.  Nathan  Dane  founded  a 
Law  School  in  connection  with  Harvard  University,  on  the  express  condition 
that  Judge  Story  should  consent  to  become  its  first  professor.  The  eminent 
jurist  acquiesced,  and  became  greatly  interested  in  the  important  duties  of  in- 
struction to  which  his  position  called  him.  Indeed,  he  was  so  impressed  with 
the  importance  of  the  labor,  and  so  enamored  with  its  pleasures,  that  he  contem- 
plated a  resignation  of  his  seat  on  the  bench  in  order  that  he  might  apply  all  his 
time  and  energies  to  the  school. 

Judge  Story  wrote  much  and  well.  The  most  important  of  his  productions 
are  Commentaries  on  the  Law  of  Bailments  /  Commentaries  on  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  three  volumes,  1833;  an  abridgment  of  the  same;  Commen- 
taries on  the  Conflict  of  Laws,  1834;  Commentaries  on  Equity  Jurisprudence,  in 
two  volumes;  a  treatise  on  the  Science  of  Pleading  in  Courts  of  Equity,  1838; 
on  the  Law  of  Agency,  1839  ;  on  the  Law  of  Partnership,  1841 ;  on  the  Law  of 
Bills  of  Exchange,  1843;  and  on  the  Law  of  Promissory  Notes,  1845.  To  the 
Encyclopaedia  Americana,  and  the  North  America  Review,  he  contributed  many 
valuable  papers ;  and  he  delivered  many  addresses  upon  various  important  sub- 
jects. Judge  Story  died  at  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  on  the  10th  of  September, 
1845,  at  the  age  of  sixty-six  years. 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN. 

A  GENTLE  spirit,  full  of  angelic  sweetness,  passed  from  earth  to  heaven 
when  that  of  Charles  Brockden  Brown  put  off  its  mortality.  He  was  born 
of  Quaker  parents,  in  Philadelphia,  on  the  17th  of  January,  1771.  His  body 
was  always  frail,  but  his  mind  was  vigorous  and  his  soul  ever  hopeful.  He  was 
dearly  loved  in  the  home  where  he  was  nurtured,  carefully  tutored  in  the  rudi- 
ments of  education,  and  at  the  age  of  ten  was  placed  under  the  charge  of  a 
teacher  named  Proud,  whose  instruction  he  enjoyed  for  five  years.  Young 
Brown  was  wonderfully  precocious,  and  he  made  remarkable  progress  in  the 
study  of  the  Latin,  Greek,  and  French  languages,  and  mathematics.  Like  "Watts, 
his  thoughts  "came  in  numbers,"  and  before  ho  was  fifteen  years  of  age,  he  had 
actually  commenced  three  epic  poems.  Young  Brown's  friends  wished  him  to 
be  a  lawyer,  and  he  commenced  legal  studies.  They  were  not  congenial  to  his 

1.  Mr.  Story's  course  offended  Mr.  Jefferson,  for  the  Embargo  was  one  of  the  favorite  measures  of  the 
President.    He  called  Mr.  Story  a  "  pseudo-republican." 


BARON  I)E   KALB.  291 


taste,  and  lie  resolved  to  devote  his  life  to  literature.  With  young  men  of  cor- 
responding tastes  he  associated  for  mutual  improvement  in  studying  and  in  com- 
position. His  health  was  feeble,  and  he  made  long  pedestrian  journeys  into  the 
country  in  quest  of  invigoration.  But  it  came  not. 

In  1793,  young  Brown  visited  an  intimate  friend  in  New  York,  where  he 
formed  the  acquaintance  of  several  literary  young  men.  For  some  time  he  re- 
sided alternately  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  carefully  preparing  his  mind 
to  become  a  public  writer.  He  chose  the  Novel  as  the  best  medium  through 
which  to  convey  his  peculiar  views  of  humanity  to  the  world;  and,  in  1798, 
when  twenty-seven  years  of  age,  his  Wieland  appeared,  and  at  once  established 
his  reputation  as  an  author  of  highest  rank.  The  following  year  he  established 
a  monthly  magazine  in  New  York;  and,  in  1800,  he  published  three  novels — 
Arthur  Mervyn,  Ormond,  and  Edgar  Huntley.  Clara  Howard  was  published  in 
1801;  and.  in  1804,  his  last  novel,  entitled  Jane  Talbot,  was  first  issued  in  Eng- 
land, and  afterward  in  Philadelphia.  That  year  he  married  the  daughter  of  a 
Presbyterian  clergyman,  in  New  York,  and  immediately  removed  to  Philadelphia, 
where  he  afterward  assumed  editorial  control  of  The  Literary  Magazine  and  The 
American  Register.  These  were  ably  conducted  by  him  until  failing  health  com- 
pelled him  to  lay  aside  his  pen,  and,  in  the  bosom  of  an  affectionate  family,  sur- 
rounded by  dear  friends,  to  prepare  for  death,  which  the  unmistakable  symptoms 
of  consumption  were  heralding.  That  disease  was  rapidly  developed  during 
1809,  and  in  February,  the  following  year,  he  expired. 


BARON    DE    KALB. 

TTPON  the  green  in  front  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Camden,  South  Caro- 
U  Una,  is  a  neat  marble  monument  erected  to  the  memory  of  one  of  the  brave 
foreigners  who  fought  for  liberty  in  America,  and  thereby  gained  the  imperish- 
able dignity  of  citizenship,  in  spite  of  the  conventional  restrictions  which  impose 
the  necessity  of  native  birth  or  fealty  oath,  to  make  men  such.  That  officer  was 
Baron  do  Kalb,  Knight  of  the  Royal  Order  of  Military  Merit,  and  a  native  of 
Alsace,  a  German  province  ceded  to  France.  He  was  educated  in  the  art  of 
war  in  the  French  army,  and  came  to  America,  with  La  Fayette,  in  the  Spring 
of  1777.  Ho  offered  his  services  to  the  Continental  Congress,  and  on  the  15th 
of  September  following,  that  body  commissioned  him  a  major-general  in  tho 
regular  army.  He  had  been  in  America  before,  having  been  sent  hither,  about 
1762,  as  a  secret  agent  of  the  French  government,  to  ascertain  the  state  of  tho 
Anglo-American  colonies.  Although  travelling  in  disguise,  he  excited  suspicion. 
On  one  occasion  he  was  arrested,  but  was  immediately  released,  as  nothing 
justified  his  detention.  It  was  through  Do  Kalb  that  La  Fayette  gained  an  in- 
troduction to  the  American  commissioners  in  Paris,  and,  with  the  young  marquis, 
the  veteran  soldier  left  the  honors  and  emoluments  of  a  brigadier  in  the  French 
service,  and  joined  the  fortunes  of  a  people  in  rebellion  against  one  of  the  great 
powers  of  the  earth. 

De  Kalb  was  active  in  the  events  near  Philadelphia  during  the  Autumn  pre- 
ceding the  memorable  Winter  encampment  at  Valley  Forge.  The  following 
year  he  was  in  command  in  New  Jersey.  While  at  Morristown,  in  the  Spring 
of  1780,  he  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  Maryland  line,  and  with  these,  and 
the  Delaware  Continental  troops,  he  marched  southward,  in  April,  to  reinforce 
General  Lincoln,  then  besieged  in  Charleston.  Ho  was  too  lato ;  and  General 


292  JOHN  RANDOLPH. 


Gates  being  sent  soon  afterward  to  take  command  of  the  troops  in  the  South, 
De  Kalb  became  subordinate  to  that  officer.  Gates  reached  De  Kalb's  camp,  on 
the  Deep  river,  at  the  close  of  July,  1780,  and  pressed  forward  to  confront  Corn- 
wallis,  at  Camden.  Seven  miles  north  of  that  village,  the  two  armies  unex- 
pectedly met,  at  midnight ;  and  in  the  severe  battle  which  occurred  the  follow- 
ing morning  [August  16],  De  Kalb  was  mortally  wounded,  and  the  Americans 
were  utterly  defeated  and  routed.  He  fell,  scarred  with  eleven  wounds,  while 
trying  to  rally  the  scattering  Americans.  He  died  at  Camden,  three  days  after- 
ward, was  buried  where  his  monument  now  stands,  and  an  ornamental  tree  was 
planted  at  the  head  of  his  grave.  The  corner-stone  of  that  monument  was  laid 
in  1825,  by  his  friend  and  companion-in-arms,  La  Fayette.  On  the  14th  of 
October,  1780,  Congress  ordered  a  monument  to  be  erected  to  his  memory  in  the 
city  of  Annapolis,  Maryland,  but  that  duty,  like  justice  to  his  widow  and  heirs, 
has  been  delayed  until  now.1 


JOHN    RANDOLPH. 

OEVENTH  in  descent  from  Pocahontas,  the  beloved  daughter  of  the  great 
0  Emperor  of  the  Powhatans,  was  John  Randolph,  who  usually  made  the 
suffix,  "of  Roanoke,"  to  his  name.  He  was  the  son  of  a  respectable  planter  in 
Chesterfield  county,  three  miles  from  Petersburg,  Virginia,  where  he  was  born 
on  the  2d  of  June,  1773.  It  was  through  his  paternal  grandmother,  Jane  Boll- 
ing,  that  the  blood  of  Pocahontas  was  transmitted  to  him.  He  lost  his  father 
while  he  was  an  infant,  and  his  mother  afterward  married  Judge  St.  George 
Tucker.  His  health  was  always  delicate,  and  until  he  entered  the  college  at 
Princeton,  after  a  residence  in  Bermuda  for  a  year,  his  studies  were  irregular. 
His  mother  died  in  1788,  and  then  he  entered  Columbia  College,  in  the  city  of 
New  York.  There  he  remained  until  1790,  when  he  returned  to  Virginia,  and 
completed  his  education  in  William  and  Mary  College.  In  1793,  he  went  to 
Philadelphia  to  study  law  with  his  uncle,  Edmund  Randolph,  then  attorney- 
general  of  the  United  States.  He  made  but  little  progress  in  preparing  for  the 
profession,  and  never  entered  upon  its  practice.  He  delighted  in  the  British 
classics,  and  read  a  great  deal,  but  for  some  time  after  reaching  his  majority,  ho 
had  no  fixed  intentions  concerning  a  life-employment. 

Mr.  Randolph's  first  appearance  in  public  life  was  in  1799,  when  he  was 
elected  to  a  seat  in  Congress.  He  had  already  displayed  great  powers  of  elo- 
quence in  the  peculiar  line  of  satire  or  denunciation,  and  just  before  his  election, 
he  was  brought  into  antagonism  with  Patrick  Henry,  on  the  subject  of  the  Alien 
and  Sedition  laws.  "When  he  commenced  a  reply  to  a  speech  by  Henry,  a  gen- 
tleman remarked,  "  Come,  colonel,  let  us  go — it  is  not  worth  while  to  listen  to 
that  boy."  "Stay,  my  friend,"  replied  Henry,  "there  's  an  old  man's  head  on 
that  boy's  shoulders."  Congress  was  a  field  particularly  suited  to  his  capacities, 
and  for  thirty  years  (with  the  exception  of  three  intervals  of  two  years  each),  he 
was  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  During  that  time  he  was  a 
representative  of  Virginia  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  for  about  two  years. 

1.  In  1819,  1820,  and  1821,  the  surviving  heirs  of  Baron  de  Kalb  petitioned  Congress  for  the  payment 
of  alleged  arrears  due  the  general  at  his  death,  and  also  for  certain  indemnities,  but  the  claim  was  dis- 
allowed. Simeon  de  Witt  Blooclgoorl,  Esq.,  brought  the  matter  to  Ihe  attention  of  Congress,  in  1836,  but 
without  success.  On  the  15th  of  December,  1854,  the  House  of  Representatives  voted  an  appropriation 
of  sixty-six  thousand  dollars  to  the  heirs  of  Baron  de  Kalb,  and  on  the  19th  of  January  following,  the 
Senate  voted  in  favor  of  the  appropriation  ;  so,  at  last,  tardy  justice  will  have  reached  the  family  of  the 
hero. 


JOHN   RANDOLPH. 


293 


lie  was  seized  with  a  paroxism  of  insanity,  in  1811,  after  many  months  of  moodi- 
ness,  irrascibility,  and  suspicions  of  his  best  friends ;  and  he  had  returns  of  this 
malady  several  times  during  his  life.  He  strenuously  opposed  the  war  with 
Great  Britain,  in  1812.  Up  to  1806,  he  had  been  a  consistent  member  of  the 
Republican  party ;  then  his  views  changed,  arid  he  became  an  opponent  of  Mad- 
ison, more  bitter  than  any  Federalist  of  New  England.  His  political  course, 
after  the  war,  was  erratic,  and  he  delighted  to  be  in  the  minority,  because  it 
gave  him  special  opportunities  for  vituperation.  He  favored  the  claims  of  Mr. 
Crawford  for  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States,  in  1824;  but,  in  1828,  he  was 
the  warm  friend  of  General  Jackson,  and  his  ardent  supporter  for  the  same 
office. 

In  1822,  Mr.  Randolph  made  a  voyage  to  England  for  the  benefit  of  his  health, 
where  his  political  fame  and  strange  personal  appearance  created  quite  a  sensa- 
tion. He  made  another  voyage  thither,  in  1824,  but  his  health  was  too  much 
impaired  to  receive  any  permanent  benefit.  From  that  time  the  current  of  his 
public  career  was  often  interrupted  by  sickness.  In  1829,  he  was  a  member  of 
the  Virginia  convention,  called  to  revise  the  constitution  of  that  State ;  and,  in 
1830,  President  Jackson  appointed  him  minister  to  Russia.  He  accepted  the 
station,  on  condition  that  he  might  spend  the  Winter  in  the  south  of  Europe,  if 
his  health  should  require  it.  He  reached  St.  Petersburg  in  September,  but  his 


294  JOSIAH   BARTLETT. 


stay  was  short.  Soon  after  his  reception  by  the  Emperor,  the  rigors  of  approach- 
ing Winter  compelled  him  to  leave  the  region  of  the  Neva.  He  arrived  in  Lon- 
don, in  December,  where  he  made  a  characteristic  speech  at  the  Lord  Mayor's 
dinner.  He  remained  in  England  until  the  Autumn  of  the  following  year,  when 
he  returned  home  in  a  state  of  extreme  exhaustion.  He  rallied,  and  his  con- 
stituents again  elected  him  to  Congress.  But  he  did  not  take  his  seat  there. 
Disease  was  busy  with  its  fingers  of  decay.  Consumption  was  making  terrible 
breaches  in  the  citadel  of  life  ;  and  on  the  23d  of  May,  1833,  he  died  in  a  hotel 
in  Philadelphia,  while  on  his  way  to  New  York  to  embark  for  Europe,  for  the 
benefit  of  his  health.  Mr.  Randolph  was  a  strange  compound  of  opposing  quali- 
ties. He  was  brilliant  without  sound  sense ;  morose  and  irascible  with  a  kindly 
heart  toward  friends ;  an  apparently  gloomy  fatalist — almost  an  Atheist  at  times 
— yet  overflowing,  frequently,  with  pious  thoughts  and  sentiments.1  He  was  a 
famous  but  not  a  great  man. 


JOSIAH    BARTLETT. 

FEW  men  have  been  more  faithful  in  the  performance  of  public  duties,  or  more 
honest  and  honorable  in  their  private  relations,  than  Josiah  Bartlett,  one 
of  the  two  members  of  the  medical  profession,  in  New  Hampshire,  who  signed 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  He  was  descended  from  an  ancient  Norman 
family,  some  of  whom  became  quite  distinguished  in  English  history.  He  was 
born  at  Amesbury,  Massachusetts,  in  November,  1729.  He  was  a  maternal 
relative  of  Daniel  Webster,  and,  like  that  statesman,  he  arose  to  eminence  by 
the  force  of  his  own  character,  under  Providence,  without  the  factitious  aid  of 
wealth  or  family  influence.  He  lacked  a  collegiate  education,  but  having  acquired 
a  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Latin  in  the  family  of  a  relative,  he  was  prepared  for 
the  study  of  medicine,  his  chosen  profession.  Pie  commenced  its  practice  at 
Kingston,  New  Hampshire,  was  skilful,  and  soon  acquired  a  moderate  fortune. 

Although  an  unbending  republican  in  principle,  Dr.  Bartlett  was  greatly 
esteemed  by  the  royal  governor,  Benning  Wentworth,  and  received  from  him  a 
magistrate's  commission,  and  the  command  of  a  regiment  of  militia.  In  1765, 
he  was  chosen  a  representative  in  the  New  Hampshire  legislature,  and  there  he 
became  popular  by  his  staunch  advocacy  of  the  cause  of  the  colonists  in  their 
opposition  to  the  Stamp  Act.  Wentworth  attempted  to  win  him  to  the  side  of 
the  crown,  by  tempting  bribes,  but  he  rejected  every  overture.  In  1774,  he 
was  a  member  of  the  general  Committee  of  Safety.  The  appointment  of  that 
committee  alarmed  the  governor.  He  dissolved  the  Assembly ;  but  the  members, 
with  Dr.  Bartlett  at  their  head,  reassembled,  and,  like  those  of  Virginia,  ap- 
pointed delegates  to  the  Continental  Congress.  One  of  these  was  Dr.  Bartlett. 
Wentworth  soon  afterward  took  away  his  magistrate's  and  military  commissions ; 
but  the  governor,  in  turn,  was  speedily  deprived  of  his  office,  and  became  a 
fugitive.  Dr.  Bartlett  was  reflected  to  Congress,  in  1775,  and  was  one  of  the 
committee  chosen  to  devise  a  plan  for  a  confederation  of  the  States.  He  ear- 
nestly supported  the  proposition  for  independence,  and  was  the  first  man  to  sign 
it,  after  John  Hancock. 

Dr.  Bartlett  remained  in  Congress  until  1778,  when  he  obtained  leave  to  re- 

1.  It  is  said  that  on  one  occasion  he  ascended  a  lofly  spur  of  the  Blue  Ridpre,  at  dawn,  and  from  that 
magnificent  observatory  saw  the  sun  rise.  ^  s  its  light  burst  in  beauty  and  priory  over  the  vast  panorama 
before  him,  he  turned  to  his  servant  and  said,  with  deep  emotion,  "  Tom,  if  any  body  says  there  is  ro 
God,  tell  them  they  lie  !"  Thus  he  expressed  the  deep  sense  which  his  soul  felt  of  the  presence  of  a 
Great  Creator. 


HORATIO   GATES.  295 


turn  home  and  superintend  his  deranged  private  affairs.  He  did  not  again 
resume  his  scat  in  that  body,  for  the  following  year  ho  was  appointed  chief 
justice  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  of  his  native  State.  He  was  afterward 
raised  to  the  bench  of  the  Superior  Court ;  and  was  very  active  in  favor  of  the 
Federal  Constitution.  The  legislature  elected  him  first  United  States  Senator, 
under  the  new  government,  but  he  declined  the  honor,  having  been  previously 
chosen  president,  or  governor  of  New  Hampshire..  That  office  ho  held,  by  suc- 
cessive election,  until  1794,  when  he  retired  to  private  life,  and  sought  needful 
ropose,  after  serving  his  country  faithfully  full  thirty  years.  That  repose  upon 
which  he  entered  was  but  the  prelude  to  a  far  longer  one,  near  at  hand.  He 
died  on  the  19th  of  May,  1795,  in  the  sixty-sixth  year  of  his  age. 


HORATIO    OATES. 

rO  of  the  general  officers  of  the  Continental  army  were  natives  of  England. 
These  were  Horatio  Gates  and  Charles  Lee,  and  both  bear  the  just  odium 
of  being  jealous  of  Washington,  and  aspiring  to  supplant  him.  Gates  was  born 
about  the  year  1728,  and  came  to  America  as  a  subaltern  in  General  Braddock's 
army,  in  1755.  He  remained  in  Virginia,  and  paid  much  attention  to  military 
tactics.  Being  known  as  a  good  disciplinarian,  he  was  chosen,  by  Congress, 
adjutant-general  of  the  Continental  army,  when  it  was  organized,  in  June,  1775  ; 
and  he  performed  efficient  service  in  his  department,  under  Washington,  until 
June,  1776,  when  he  was  appointed  to  the  chief  command  of  the  Northern  De- 
partment, with  the  commission  of  major-general.  In  the  Autumn  of  that  year 
he  joined  the  main  army  in  New  Jersey,  with  a  detachment  of  his  command. 
The  following  Summer  he  superseded  General  Schuyler,  who  had  been  placed  in 
command  of  the  Northern  forces,  a  few  weeks  before,  and  gained  all  the  honor 
of  the  capture  of  Burgoyne  and  his  troops,  at  Saratoga,  in  October,  when  the 
real  praise  was  due  to  Schuyler,  Arnold,  and  others.  In  that  whole  affair  Gates 
exhibited  a  want  of  magnanimity  unbecoming  a  patriot  and  soldier.  During  the 
ensuing  Winter  he  entered  into  a  conspiracy,  with  others,  to  disparage  Wash- 
ington, and  secure  for  himself  the  office  of  commander-in-chief.  He  used  his 
power  as  President  of  the  Board  of  War,  for  that  purpose,  but  the  scheme  utterly 
failed.  While  the  conspirators  were  thus  busy,  Washington  and  his  army  were 
suffering  dreadfully  at  Yalley  Forge.  From  that  time  until  appointed  to  the 
command  of  the  Southern  army,  in  the  Spring  of  1780,  his  military  services  were 
of  little  account. 

When  the  news  of  Lincoln's  misfortunes  at  Charleston  reached  Congress,  that 
body,  without  consulting  Washington,  appointed  Gates  to  the  command  in  the 
South,  foolishly  supposing  his  name,  as  "the  conqueror  of  Burgoyne,"  would 
have  the  effect  to  rally  the  people.1  Washington  would  have  named  Greene, 
and  all  would  have  been  well.  Gates  and  his  secretary  overtook  De  J£alb  and 
the  army  at  Deep  River,  in  July,  and  marched  forward  to  meet  Cornwallis  at 
Camden.  His  excessive  vanity  brought  great  misfortune.  He  was  so  sure  of  a 
victory,  that  ho  made  no  provision  for  a  retreat ;  and  when  that  movement  be- 
came necessary,  it  assumed  the  character  of  a  rout.  Marching  at  midnight 
in  a  deep  sandy  road,  the  advanced  guards  of  the  two  armies  met  a  few  miles 
north  of  Camden,  without  being  aware  of  each  other's  approach.  A  fight  in  the 


1.  General  Charles  Lee,  who  knew  Gates  well,  said 


to  him,  on  his  departure,  "  Take  care  that  you 
i."     There  was  prophecy  in  the  warning. 


296  JAMES  MADISON. 


dark  ensued,  and  the  following  morning  a  severe  battle  took  place.  The  Amer- 
icans were  defeated  and  fled  in  great  confusion.  Gates,  almost  unattended, 
hastened  toward  Charlotte.  He  tried  to  rally  his  fugitive  troops  in  that  vicinity j 
but  failed.  General  Greene  was  soon  afterward  appointed  to  succeed  him,  and 
then  commenced  that  series  of  brilliant  movements  which  finally  resulted  in 
driving  the  British  to  the  sea-board.  A  committee  of  Congress,  appointed  to 
scrutinize  Gates'  conduct,  acquitted  him  of  blame,  and  the  national  legislature 
sanctioned  the  verdict.  He  remained  on  his  farm  in  Virginia  until  1782,  when 
he  was  reinstated  in  his  military  command  in  the  main  army,  but  active  services 
were  no  longer  needed.  At  the  close  of  the  contest  he  retired  to  his  estate, 
where  he  remained  until  1790,  when  he  made  his  permanent  abode  upon  Man- 
hattan Island,  near  New  York  city.  Two  years  later  he  was  a  member  of  tho 
legislature  of  New  York,  where  he  served  one  term.  He  died  at  his  residence, 
near  the  corner  of  the  present  Twenty-Third  Street  and  Second  Avenue,  in  New 
York,  on  the  10th  of  April,  1806,  at  the  age  of  seventy-eight  years.  General 
Gates  possessed  many  excellent  qualities,  but  he  was  deficient  in  the  necessary 
qualifications  for  a  successful  commander;  and  his  vanity  generally  misled  his 
judgment.  He  was  a  gentleman  in  his  manners,  humane  and  benevolent,  but 
he  lacked  intellectual  cultivation  and  true  magnanimity. 


JAMES    MADISON. 

WITHIN  site  of  Blue  Ridge,  in  Virginia,  lived  three  Presidents  of  the  United 
States,  whose  public  career  commenced  in  the  Revolutionary  times,  and 
whose  political  faith  was  the  same  throughout  a  long  series  of  years.  These 
were  Thomas  Jefferson,  James  Monroe,  and  James  Madison.  The  latter  was 
born  at  the  house  of  his  maternal  grandmother,  on  the  banks  of  the  Rappahan- 
nock,  in  Virginia,  on  the  16th  of  March,  1751.  His  parents  resided  in  Orange 
county,  and  there,  during  a  long  life,  the  eminent  statesman  lived.  After  com- 
pleting his  preparatory  studies,  he  was  sent  to  the  college  at  Princeton,  New 
Jersey,  then  under  the  charge  of  Dr.  Witherspoon,  for  his  parents  knew  the  at- 
mosphere of  the  lower  country  at  Williamsburg  to  be  uncongenial  for  persons 
from  the  mountain  regions.  He  left  Princeton,  in  the  Spring  of  1773,  with 
health  much  impaired  by  intense  study,1  and  immediately  entered  upon  a  course 
of  reading  preparatory  for  the  practice  of  the  law,  which  he  had  chosen  for  a 
profession.  Political  affairs  attracted  his  attention,  and  he  was  diverted  from 
law  to  public  employments.  In  the  Spring  of  1776,  he  was  a  member  of  the 
convention  which  formed  the  first  Constitution  for  the  new  free  State  of  Virginia ; 
and  the  same  year  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  State  legislature.  He  lost 
the  suffrages  of  his  constituents  the  following  year,  because,  it  was  alleged,  that 
he  would  not  "  treat "  the  people  to  liquor,  and  could  not  make  a  speech !  The 
legislature  named  him  a  member  of  the  executive  council,  in  which  office  he 
served  until  1779,  when  he  was  elected  to  membership  in  the  Continental  Con- 
gress. He  took  his  seat  there  in  March,  1780,  and  for  three  years  he  was  one 
of  the  most  reliable  men  in  that  body.2 

Mr.  Madison  was  again  a  member  of  the  Virginia  Assembl}-,  from  1784  to 
1786,  where  he  was  the  champion  of  every  wise  and  liberal  policy,  especially  in 

1.  While  at  Princeton,  he  slept  only  three  hours  of  the  twenty-four,  for  months  together. 

2.  He  was  the  author  of  the  able  instructions  to  Mr.  Jay,  when  he  went  PS  minister  to  Spain  :  also  of 
the  Address  of  the  States,  at  the  end  of  the  war,  on  the  subject  of  the  financial  affairs  of  the  confederacy. 


JAMES  MADISON. 


297 


religious  matters.  He  advocated  the  separation  of  Kentucky  from  Virginia ; 
opposed  the  introduction  of  paper  money ;  supported  the  laws  codified  by  Jeffer- 
son, Wythe,  and  Pendleton;  and  was  the  author  of  the  resolution  which  led  to 
the  convention  at  Annapolis,  in  1786,  and  the  more  important  constitutional 
convention,  in  1787.  He  was  a  member  of  the  convention  that  formed  the 
Federal  Constitution,  and  he  kept  a  faithful  record  of  all  the  proceedings  of  that 
body,  day  after  day.1  After  the  labors  of  the  convention  were  over,  he  joined 
with  Hamilton  and  Jay  in  the  publication  of  a  series  of  essays  in  support  of  it.2 
These,  in  collected  form,  are  known  as  The  Federalist.  In  the  Virginia  conven- 
tion called  to  consider  the  constitution,  Mr.  Madison  was  chiefly  instrumental  in 
procuring  its  ratification,  in  spite  of  the  fears  of  many,  and  the  eloquence  of 
Patrick  Henry.  He  was  one  of  the  first  representatives  of  Virginia  in  the  Fed- 
eral Congress,  and  occupied  a  seat  there  until  1797.  He  was  opposed  to  the 
financial  policy  of  Hamilton,  and  to  some  of  the  most  important  measures  of 
Washington's  administration,  yet  this  difference  of  opinion  did  not  produce  a 
personal  alienation  of  those  patriots.3  His  republicanism  was  of  the  conservative 
stamp,  yet  Mr.  Jefferson  esteemed  him  so  highly  that  he  chose  him  for  his  Sec- 

1.  His  interesting  papers  were  purchased  by  Congress,  after  his  death,  for  the  sum  of  thirty  thousand 
dollars. 

2.  See  sketches  of  Hamilton  and  Jay. 

3.  Mr.  Madison  -was  opposed  to  the  Alien  and  Sedition  laws,  enacted  at  the  beginning  of  John  Adams' 
administration  ;  and  it  became  known,  after  his  death,  that  he  was  the  author  of  the  famous  Resolutions 
on  that  topic,  adopted  in  the  convention  of  Virginia,  held  in  1798. 


298  BENJAMIN  LINCOLN. 

rotary  of  State,  in  1801.  That  station  he  filled  with  rare  ability  during  the  whole 
eight  years  of  Jefferson's  administration,  and  then  he  was  elected  President  of 
the  United  States.  It  was  a  period  of  great  interest  in  the  history  of  our  Re- 
public,  for  a  serious  quarrel  was  then  pending  between  the  governments  of  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain.  In  the  third  year  of  his  administration  the 
quarrel  resulted  in  war,  which  continued  from  1812  until  1815. 

After  serving  eight  years  as  chief  magistrate  of  the  Republic,  Mr.  Madison,  in 
March,  1817,  returned  to  his  paternal  estate  of  Montpelier,  where  he  remained  in 
retirement  until  his  death,  which  occurred  almost  twenty  years  afterward.  Ho 
never  left  his  native  county  but  once  after  returning  from  Washington,  except 
to  visit  Charlottesville,  occasionally,  in  the  performance  of  his  duties  as  visitor 
and  rector  of  the  University  of  Virginia.  He  made  a  journey  to  Richmond,  in 
1829,  to  attend  a  convention  called  to  revise  the  Virginia  Constitution.  He  had 
married  an  accomplished  widow,  in  Philadelphia,  in  1794,  and  with  her,  his 
books,  friends,  and  in  agricultural  pursuits,  he  passed  the  evening  of  his  days  in 
great  happiness.  At  length,  at  the  age  of  eighty-five  years,  on  a  beautiful 
morning  in  June  (28th),  1836,  the  venerable  statesman  went  peacefully  to  his 
rest. 


BENJAMIN    LINCOLN. 

THE  first  Secretary  of  War  after  the  struggle  for  independence  had  resulted  suc- 
cessfully for  the  colonists,  in  the  capture  of  Cornwallis  and  his  army,  was 
Benjamin  Lincoln,  one  of  the  most  accomplished  soldiers  of  the  contest,  then 
almost  ended.  He  was  born  at  Hingham,  Massachusetts,  on  the  3d  of  February, 
1733.  He  was  trained  to  the  business  of  a  farmer,  and  had  very  few  educational 
advantages.  Until  past  forty  years  of  age  he  pursued  the  quiet,  unpretending 
life  of  a  plain  agriculturist,  occasionally  holding  the  office  of  justice  of  the  peace, 
sometimes  representing  his  district  in  the  colonial  legislature,  and,  when  the 
tempest  of  the  Revolution  was  about  to  burst  forth,  he  was  colonel  of  the  militia 
of  his  county,  under  a  commission  from  Governor  Hutchinson.  At  the  close  of 
1774,  the  Provincial  Congress  of  Massachusetts  appointed  him  major-general  of 
militia,  and  being  an  excellent  disciplinarian,  he  was  actively  employed  until 
the  close  of  1776,  in  training  recruits  for  the  Continental  service.  With  quite  a 
large  body  of  Massachusetts  levies,  he  joined  Washington,  at  Morristown,  in 
February,  1777.  On  the  19th  of  that  month,  Congress  appointed  him  one  of 
five  major-generals.  During  the  ensuing  Summer  and  Autumn  he  was  active  in 
collecting  troops  and  otherwise  assisting  in  the  operations  which  resulted  in  the 
capture  of  Burgoyne  and  his  army,  at  Saratoga.  In  the  battle  of  the  7th  of 
October,  at  Saratoga,  he  was  severely  wounded,  and  was  detained  from  active 
service  until  1778,  when  he  joined  the  army  under  Washington.  In  September 
of  that  year,  he  was  appointed  to  supersede  General  Howe,  in  command  of  the 
Southern  Army,  and  arrived  at  Charleston,  in  December.  He  was  chiefly  en- 
gaged during  the  following  season  in  keeping  the  British  below  the  Savannah 
river.  On  the  arrival  of  a  French  fleet  and  army,  under  D'Estaing,  off  the 
Georgia  coast,  early  in  September,  Lincoln  marched  toward  Savannah,  to  co- 
operate with  them  in  besieging  the  British  army,  then  strongly  intrenched  in 
that  city.  After  a  siege  and  assault,  in  October,  D'Estaing,  pleading  danger  to 
his  shipping,  from  Autumnal  storms,  as  an  excuse,  suddenly  resolved  to  depart, 
and  the  Americans  were  compelled  to  abandon  the  enterprise,  and  retire  into 
South  Carolina. 

During  the  Spring  of  1780,  Lincoln,  with  a  comparatively  weak  force,  was 


KICHAKD  CLOUGH  ANDERSON.  299 

besieged  in  Charleston  by  a  strong  land  and  naval  armament,  under  General  Sir 
Henry  Clinton  and  Admiral  Arbuthnot.  After  making  a  gallant  defence  for 
several  weeks,  lie  was  compelled  to  capitulate,  and  the  Southern  Army,  Charles- 
ton and  its  fortifications,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  city,  were  surrendered,  un- 
conditionally, into  the  hands  of  British  power.  General  Lincoln  was  permitted 
to  return  to  his  native  town,  on  parole ;  and,  in  November  following,  he  was 
exchanged.  He  remained  in  retirement  until  the  Spring  of  1781,  when  he 
joined  the  army  under  "Washington,  on  the  Hudson,  and  was  very  active  in 
preparations  to  attack  the  British  on  Manhattan  Island,  the  ensuing  Summer. 
Toward  Autumn  he  accompanied  the  army  to  Virginia,  rendered  efficient  ser- 
vice in  the  siege  of  Yorktown,  and  had  the  honor  of  receiving  the  surrendered 
sword  of  Cornwallis,  from  the  hands  of  General  O'Hara.1  A  few  days  after  that 
event,  Lincoln  was  appointed,  by  Congress,  Secretary  of  the  War  Department. 
Ho  held  the  office  until  near  the  close  of  1783,  when  he  resigned  and  retired  to 
his  farm.  In  1786-7,  he  was  placed  in  command  of  troops  called  out  to  quell 
the  insurrection  in  Massachusetts,  known  as  Shay's  Rebellion.  He  was  imme- 
diately successful,  and  then  again  sought  repose  and  pleasure  in  the  pursuits  of 
agriculture,  science,  and  literature.  There  he  remained  until  1789,  when  Pres- 
ident Washington  appointed  him  collector  of  the  port  of  Boston.  He  performed 
the  duties  of  that  office  for  about  twenty  years,  when,  on  the  9th  of  May,  1810, 
his  earthly  career  was  closed  by  death.  That  event  occurred  at  his  residence,  in 
Hingham,  when  he  was  about  seventy-seven  years  of  age. 

General  Lincoln  was  a  ripe  scholar  and  humble  Christian,  as  well  as  a  pat- 
riotic soldier  and  honest  civilian.  The  Faculty  of  Harvard  University  conferred 
upon  him  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts.  He  was  a  member  of  the  American 
Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences ;  and  he  was  president  of  the  Massachusetts 
Society  of  the  Cincinnati,  from  its  organization,  until  his  death. 


RICHARD    CLOU OH    ANDERSON. 

ONE  of  the  earliest  natives  of  Louisville,  Kentucky,  was  Richard  C.  Anderson, 
in  whose  honor  a  county  in  that  State  is  named.  His  father  was  a  gallant 
soldier  of  the  War  for  Independence,  and  his  mother  was  a  sister  of  the  hero  of 
the  North-west,  George  Rogers  Clarke.  Louisville  was  a  small  village  at  the 
Falls  of  the  Ohio,  at  the  time  of  his  birth,  which  occurred  on  the  4th  of  August, 
1788.  At  an  early  age  he  was  sent  to  Virginia  to  be  educated,  for  the  foot-prints 
of  the  schoolmaster  were  few  west  of  the  Alleghanies,  at  that  time.  Emigration 
was  then  pouring  a  vast  tide  into  the  Ohio  valleys,  and  a  few  years  afterward, 
villages  began  to  dot  its  banks  at  every  important  point. 

Young  Anderson  was  graduated  at  William  and  Mary  College,  studied  law 
under  Judge  Tucker,  and  commenced  its  practice  in  his  native  town,  then  rap- 
idly swelling  toward  the  proportions  of  a  city.  He  soon  stood  in  the  front  rank 
of  his  profession  as  an  able  counsellor  and  eloquent  advocate.  Political  life  pre- 
sented a  high  road  to  fame,  and  friends  and  ambition  urged  him  to  travel  it.  For 
several  years  he  was  a  member  of  the  Kentucky  legislature;  and,  in  1817,  he 
was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Federal  Congress,  where  he  continued  four  years. 
It  was  a  period  of  great  excitement  in  that  body,  for,  during  Mr.  Anderson's 
membership,  the  admission  of  Missouri  was  the  topic  for  long  and  angry  debates. 

1.  Lincoln  had  been  much  mortified  by  the  manner  of  his  surrender  at  Charleston,  imposed  by  the 
haughty  Clinton,  and  he  was  now  allowed  to  be  the  chief  actor  in  a  scene  more  humiliating  to  British 
pride  than  his  own  had  experienced.  It  was  a  triumph  and  a  punishment  that  pleased  him. 


MATHEW   CAEEY. 


In  these  Mr.  Anderson  took  a  prominent  part,  and  was  highly  esteemed  for  his 
manly  and  conciliatory  course.  His  constituents  were  anxious  to  reelect  him, 
in  1822,  but  he  declined  the  honor,  because  he  considered  his  services  to  be  more 
valuable,  at  that  juncture,  in  the  legislature  of  his  own  State,  to  which  he  was 
elected.  He  was  chosen  Speaker  of  the  Assembly,  but  did  not  preside  in  that 
body  long,  for,  in  1823,  President  Monroe  appointed  him  the  first  United  States 
minister  to  the  new  Republic  of  Colombia,  South  America.  There  he  was  re- 
ceived with  joy  and  great  honor,  and  during  his  residence  at  Bogota,  the  capital, 
he  won  for  himself  and  family  the  unaffected  love  and  esteem  of  all  classes.  In 
1824,  he  negotiated  an  important  treaty.  The  following  year  death  took  his 
wife  from  him,  and  he  returned  to  Kentucky  to  make  provision  for  the  education 
of  his  children.  He  was  again  in  Bogota,  in  the  Autumn  of  that  year,  and  re- 
mained until  the  Spring  of  1826,  when  President  Adams  appointed  him  envoy 
extraordinary  and  minister  plenipotentiary  to  the  diplomatic  Congress  held  at 
Panama,  to  consider  the  welfare  of  the  South  American  Republics.  On  his  way 
thither  he  was  taken  ill  at  the  village  of  Tubaco,  where  he  died,  on  the  24th  of 
July,  1826,  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight  years.  He  was  succeeded  in  office  by 
William  Henry  Harrison,  afterward  President  of  the  United  States. 


MATHEW    CAREY. 

FEW  men  have  exerted  so  wide  and  beneficial  an  influence,  in  the  domain  of 
letters,  in  the  United  States,  as  Mathew  Carey,  an  eminent  author  and 
publisher,  who  was  born  in  the  city  of  Dublin,  on  the  28th  of  January,  17GO. 
His  early  education  was  comparatively  limited,  but  a  love  of  knowledge  when 
his  faculties  began  to  expand  on  the  verge  of  youthhood,  overcame  all  difficulties. 
Even  while  yet  a  mere  child,  books  afforded  him  more  pleasure  than  playmates; 
and  before  he  was  fifteen  years  of  age,  he  had  made  great  progress  in  the  ac- 
quisition of  the  modern  languages  of  Europe.  »  He  would  have  become  a  dis- 
tinguished linguist,  had  opportunity  for  study  been  given  him ;  but  at  the  ago  of 
fifteen  ho  was  apprenticed  to  a  printer  and  bookseller  to  learn  the  business 
which  he  had  chosen  as  a  life-vocation.  His  first  effort  in  authorship  was  made 
when  he  was  seventeen  years  of  age.  His  topic  was  Duelling.  Two  years  after- 
ward (1779)  he  prepared  and  advertised  a  political  pamphlet,  which  alarmed  the 
Irish  Parliament,  and  caused  that  body  to  suppress  its  publication.  A  prosecu- 
tion was  determined  upon,  and  his  friends  judiciously  advised  him  to  leave  the 
country.  He  escaped  to  Paris,  where  he  became  acquainted  with  Dr.  Franklin, 
and  learned  much  concerning  America.  The  storm  subsided ;  and,  in  the  course 
of  the  following  j^ear,  young  Carey,  then  only  twenty  years  of  age,  returned  to 
Dublin,  and  became  editor  of  the  Freeman's  Journal.  In  1783,  his  father  fur- 
nished him  with  means  to  establish  a  paper  called  the  Volunteer's  Journal.  It 
exerted  a  wide  and  powerful  political  influence ;  and  in  consequence  of  the  pub- 
lication in  its  columns,  in  1784,  of  a  severe  attack  upon  the  British  government, 
and  an  alleged  libel  upon  the  Prime  Minister,  Mr.  Carey  was  arrested,  taken  to 
the  bar  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  consigned  to  Newgate  prison.  The  Lord 
Mayor  of  London  released  him  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks ;  and  in  the  Autumn 
of  1784,  he  sailed  for  America.  He  landed  at  Philadelphia  with  a  few  guineas 
in  his  pocket,. chose  that  city  for  a  residence,  and,  in  January,  1785,  commenced 
the  publication  of  the  Pennsylvania  Herald.  That  paper  soon  became  famous  for 
its  legislative  reports,  prepared  by  Mr.  Carey  himself.  Bold,  and  faithful  to  his 
convictions,  in  editorship,  he  often  offended  his  opponents.  Among  these  was 


MATHEW   CAREY. 


301 


Colonel  Oswald,  of  the  artillery  corps  of  the  Revolution,  who  was  then  editing  a 
newspaper.  Their  quarrel  resulted  in  a  duel,  in  which  Mr.  Carey  was  severely 
wounded. 

In  1786,  Mr.  Carey  commenced  the  publication  of  the  Columbian  Magazine. 
The  following  year  he  issued  another  publication,  called  the  American  Museum, 
which  he  continued  for  six  years,  when  the  prevalence  of  yellow  fever,  in  Phila- 
delphia, suspended  it.  During  that  season  of  pestilence  the  courage  and  benevo- 
lence of  Mr.  Carey,  as  an  associate  with  Stephen  Girard  and  others  as  health 
commissioners,  were  nobly  exhibited.  Their  labors  for  the  sick  and  orphans 
were  incessant  and  beneficent.  His  experience  led  him  to  the  publication  of  an 
able  essay  on  the  origin,  character,  and  treatment  of  yellow  fever,  in  1794.  At 
about  the  same  time  he  was  active  in  founding  the  Hibernian  Society,  for  the 
relief  of  emigrants  from  Ireland.  In  1796,  he  was  zealously  engaged,  with  others, 
in  establishing  a  Sunday  School  Society  in  Philadelphia ;  and  the  same  year  he 
entered  into  a  controversy  with  the  celebrated  William  Cobbett,  with  so  much 
logic  and  energy,  that  he  silenced  his  antagonist. 

The  most  important  effort,  made  by  Mr.  Carey  in  publishing,  was  in  1802,  when 
he  put  forth  a  handsome  edition  of  the  standard  English  Quarto  Bible.  H'g 
chief  travelling  agent  for  its  sale  was  Reverend  Mason  L.  Weems,  who  disposed 


302  DAVID  PORTER. 


of  several  thousand  copies.1  It  was  profitable  and  creditable  to  Mr.  Carey. 
During  the  whole  exciting  period  just  previous  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  war 
with  Great  Britain,  in  1812,  Mr.  Carey's  pen  was  continually  busy  on  topics  of 
public  interest;  and  in  the  midst  of  the  violent  party  excitement,  in  1814,  ho 
published  his  famous  Olive  Branch.  It  was  intended  to  soften  the  asperities  of 
party  spirit,  create  a  thoroughly  American  sentiment  among  all  classes,  and  pro- 
duce peace  and  conciliation.  It  was  eminently  successful ;  and  for  this  effort, 
Mathew  Carey  deserved  a  civic  crown.  Ten  thousand  copies  were  sold,  and  its 
salutary  influence  is  incalculable. 

In  1818,  Mr.  Carey  commenced  the  preparation  of  his  most  important  historical 
work,  the  Vindicice  Hibernice.  He  soon  afterward  directed  his  attention  especially 
to  political  economy,  and  wrote  voluminously  upon  the  subject  of  tariffs.  No 
less  than  fifty-nine  pamphlets  upon  that  and  cognate  topics  were  written  by  him 
between  the  years  1819  and  1833,  and  comprising  over  twenty -three  hundred 
octavo  pages.  Besides  these,  he  wrote  numerous  essays  for  newspapers,  memo- 
rials to  Congress,  &c.  Internal  improvements  also  engaged  his  mind  and  pen, 
and  his  efforts  in  that  direction  entitle  him  to  the  honor  of  a  public  benefactor. 
Indeed,  throughout  his  whole  life  Mr.  Carey  was  eminently  a  benefactor,  public 
and  private;  and  hundreds  of  widows  and  orphans  have  earnestly  invoked 
Heaven's  choicest  blessings  upon  his  head.  Scores  of  young  men,  who  had  been 
profited  by  his  generous  helping  hand,  loved  him  as  a  father ;  and  people  of  the 
city  in  which  he  lived  regarded  him  with  the  highest  reverential  respect,  for  his 
many  virtues.  There  was  sincere  mourning  in  many  households,  in  Philadelphia, 
when,  on  the  17th  of  September,  1839,  that  good  man's  spirit  left  earth  for  a 
brighter  sphere.  Ho  had  lived  to  the  ripe  old  age  of  almost  eighty  years ;  and, 
in  addition  to  a  large  fortune,  he  left  to  his  descendants  the  precious  inheritance 
of  an  untarnished  reputation. 


DAVID    PORTER. 

THE  motto  "Free  Trade  and  Sailors'  Rights,"  which  became  the  text  for  many 
a  song  and  speech,  some  forty  years  ago,  was  first  emblazoned  upon  the 
broad  pennant  of  Commodore  Porter,  that  floated  from  the  mast-head  of  his  flag- 
ship, the  Essex,  when  he  sailed  on  his  famous  cruise  in  the  Pacific  Ocean,  toward 
the  close  of  1813.  The  author  of  that  motto  was  one  of  the  bravest  of  the 
American  naval  commanders  during  the  last  war  between  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain.  He  was  born  in  Boston,  on  the  1st  of  February,  1780.  His 
parents  were  in  moderate  circumstances,  and  after  receiving  the  rudiments  of 
education,  David  was  compelled  to  labor  most  of  the  time  with  his  hands.  He 
had  early  manifested  a  great  desire  to  become  a  sailor;  and,  at  the  age  of  nine- 
teen years,  that  ardent  aspiration  was  fully  gratified.  His  talent  and  general 
energy  of  character  attracted  the  attention  of  some  influential  friends,  who  pro- 
cured for  him  a  midshipman's  warrant ;  and  at  the  time  when  war  with  France 
was  yet  a  probability,  he  sailed  in  the  frigate  Constellation.  His  first  experience 
in  naval  warfare  was  during  that  cruise,  when  the  Constellation,  in  February, 
1799,  captured  the  French  frigate,  L 'Insurgente.  Young  Porter's  gallantry  on 
that  occasion  was  so  conspicuous,  that  he  was  immediately  promoted  to  lieuten- 
ant. He  was  also  engaged  in  the  severe  action  with  La  Vengeance,  a  year  later ; 
and,  in  the  Autumn  of  1803,  he  accompanied  the  first  United  States  squadron  to 

1.  See  sketch  of  Mr.  Weems. 


ALEXANDER  MACOMB.  803 


the  Mediterranean,  sent  thither  to  protect  American  commerce  against  the  Bar- 
bary  pirates.  He  was  on  board  the  Philadelphia,  when  that  vessel  struck  upon 
a  rock  in  the  harbor  of  Tripoli,  and  was  among  those  who  suffered  a  painful  im- 
prisonment in  the  hands  of  that  barbarous  people.1  After  that  [1806]  he  was 
appointed  to  the  command  of  the  brig  Enterprise,  and  cruised  in  the  Mediterra- 
nean for  six  years.  On  his  return  to  the  United  States,  he  was  placed  in  com- 
mand of  the  flotilla  station  in  the  vicinity  of  New  Orleans,  where  he  remained 
until  war  was  declared  against  Great  Britain,  in  1812.  Then  he  was  promoted 
to  captain ;  and,  in  the  frigate  Essex,  he  achieved,  during  the  remainder  of  that 
year,  and  greater  part  of  1813,  those  brilliant  deeds  which  made  him  so  famous. 
From  April  to  October,  1813,  he  captured  twelve  armed  British  whale-ships, 
with  an  aggregate  of  one  hundred  and  seven  guns,  and  three  hundred  men.  He 
also  took  possession  of  an  island  of  the  Washington  group,  in  the  Pacific,  and 
named  it  Madison,  in  honor  of  the  then  President  of  the  United  States.  The 
English  sent  a  number  of  heavy  armed  ships  to  capture  or  destroy  Porter's  little 
squadron ;  and  near  Valparaiso,  on  the  coast  of  Chili,  the  Essex  was  captured,  in 
February,  1814,  after  a  hard-fought  battle  with  immensely  superior  strength. 
Commodore  Porter  wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  "  We  have  been  unfor- 
tunate but  not  disgraced."  When  he  came  home  he  was  every  where  received 
with  the  highest  honors.  Congress  and  the  several  States  gave  him  thanks,  and 
by  universal  acclamation  he  was  called  the  Hero  of  the  Pacific.  He  afterward 
aided  in  the  defence  of  Baltimore.  When  peace  came,  he  was  appointed  one  of 
the  naval  commissioners  to  superintend  national  marine  affairs.  In  1817,  he 
commanded  a  small  fleet,  sent  to  suppress  the  depredations  of  pirates  and  free- 
booters in  the  Gkilf  of  Mexico,  and  along  its  shores. 

Commodore  Porter  resigned  his  commission  in  the  Summer  of  1826,  and  was 
afterward  appointed  resident  United  States  minister,  in  Turkey.  Ho  died  near 
Constantinople  on  the  3d  of  March,  1843,  at  the  age  of  sixty-three  years. 


ALEXANDER    MACOMB. 

A  MONO-  the  stirring  scenes  of  a  military  post  in  time  of  war,  Alexander  Macomb 
ri.  was  born,  and  afterward  became  a  noted  martial  leader.  His  birth  oc- 
curred in  the  British  garrison  at  Detroit,  on  the  3d  of  April,  1782,  just  at  the 
close  of  hostilities  between  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies.  When  peace  came, 
his  father  settled  in  New  York  ;  and  at  eight  years  of  age,  Alexander  was  placed 
in  a  school  at  Newark,  New  Jersey,  under  the  charge  of  Dr.  Ogden.  There  his 
military  genius  and  taste  became  manifest.  He  formed  his  playmates  into  a 
company,  and  commanded  them  with  all  possible  juvenile  dignity.  At  the  age 
of  sixteen  years  he  joined  a  company  of  Rangers,  whose  services  were  offered  to 
the  government  of  the  United  States,  then  anticipating  a  war  with  France.  The 
following  year  he  was  promoted  to  a  cornetcy  in  the  regular  army,  but  the  cloud 
of  war  passed  away,  and  his  services  were  not  needed.  He  had  resolved  on  a 
military  life,  and  was  among  the  few  officers  retained  in  the  regular  service,  on 
the  disbanding  of  the  army.  He  was  commissioned  second-lieutenant,  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1801,  and  first-lieutenant,  in  October,  1802,  when  he  was  stationed  at 
Philadelphia,  in  the  recruiting  service.  On  completing  a  corps,  he  marched  to 
the  Cherokee  country  to  join  General  Wilkinson.  After  a  year's  service  there, 
his  troops  were  disbanded,  and  he  was  ordered  to  West  Point  to  join  a  corps  of 

1.  See  sketches  of  Decatur  and  Bainbridge. 


304  JAMES  MONROE. 


engineers.  There  he  became  adjutant,  and  also  advocate-general.  So  highly 
were  his  services  in  the  latter  office  esteemed,  and  his  attainments  admired,  that 
he  was  employed  by  the  government  in  completing  a  code  of  regulations  for 
courts-martial. 

Lieutenant  Macomb  was  promoted  to  captain  of  a  corps  of  engineers,  in  1805 ; 
and,  in  1808,  he  was  raised  to  the  rank  of  major.  In  the  Summer  of  1810,  he 
was  commissioned  lieutenant-colonel ;  and,  on  the  organization  of  the  army,  in 
April,  1812,  he  was  appointed  acting  adjutant-general.  After  the  declaration 
of  war,  a  few  weeks  later,  he  was  commissioned  colonel  of  artillery,  and  joined 
Wilkinson  on  the  Canada  frontier.  He  shared  in  the  mortifications  of  that  cam- 
paign of  1813;  but  at  Plattsburgh,  in  September,  the  following  year,  while 
bearing  the  office  of  brigadier,  he  nobly  cooperated  with  Macdonough  on  the 
lake,  in  a  victory  so  decided  and  important,  as  to  almost  obliterate  the  shame 
of  former  failures.  For  his  gallant  services  on  that  occasion  he  received  the 
thanks  of  Congress  and  a  gold  medal ;  and  the  President  conferred  on  him  the 
honor  of  a  major-general's  commission.  At  the  close  of  the  war  he  was  retained 
in  the  service,  and  ordered  to  the  command  of  the  military  fort  at  Detroit,  his 
birth-place.  In  1821,  he  was  called  to  the  head  of  the  engineer  department  at 
"Washington  city;  and  on  the  death  of  Major-General  Brown,  in  1828,  he  was 
promoted  to  General-in-Chief  of  the  army  of  the  United  States.  He  died  at  his 
head-quarters,  Washington  city,  on  the  25th  of  June,  1841,  and  was  succeeded 
in  office  by  Major-general  Scott,  now  [1855]  the  highly  honored  incumbent. 


JAMES    MONROE. 

THE  fifth  President  of  the  United  States,  James  Monroe,  like  four  of  his  pre- 
JL  decessors  in  office,  was  a  native  of  Virginia.  He  was  born  in  Westmore- 
land county,  on  the  2d  of  April,  1759.  His  early  life  was  spent  in  the  midst  of 
the  political  excitements  during  the  kindling  of  the  War  for  Independence,  and 
he  imbibed  a  patriotic  and  martial  spirit  from  the  stirring  scenes  around  him. 
He  left  the  college  of  William  and  Mary,  at  the  age  of  about  eighteen  years. 
His  young  soul  was  fired  by  the  sentiments  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
then  just  promulgated,  and  he  hastened  to  the  head-quarters  of  Washington,  at 
New  York,  and  enrolled  himself  as  a  soldier  for  Freedom.  The  disastrous  battle 
near  Brooklyn  had  just  terminated,  but  he  tasted  of  war  soon  afterward  in  the 
skirmish  at  Harlem  and  the  battle  at  White  Plains.  He  accompanied  Washing- 
ton in  his  retreat  across  the  Jerseys ;  and  with  a  corps  of  young  men,  as  lieuten- 
ant, he  was  in  the  van  of  the  battle  at  Trenton,  where  he  was  severely  wounded. 
For  his  gallant  services  there  he  was  promoted  to  captain ;  and  during  the  cam- 
paigns of  1777  and  1778,  he  was  aid  to  Lord  Stirling.  In  the  battles  of  Brandy- 
wine,  Germantown,  and  Monmouth,  he  was  distinguished  for  bravery  and  skill ; 
and  desirous  of  official  promotion,  from  which,  as  a  staff  officer,  he  was  precluded, 
he  made  unsuccessful  efforts  to  raise  a  regiment  in  Virginia.  He  soon  afterward 
left  the  army,  and  commenced  the  study  of  law  with  Mr.  Jefferson ;  but  when 
Arnold  and  Cornwallis  invaded  his  native  State,  in  1781,  he  was  found  among 
the  volunteers  for  its  defence.  He  had  been  sent  to  the  South,  the  previous 
year,  by  the  governor  of  Virginia,  to  collect  information  respecting  the  military 
strength  of  the  patriots,  after  the  fall  of  Charleston. 

In  1782,  Mr.  Monroe  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Virginia  legislature,  and 
that  body  soon  afterward  gave  him  a  seat  in  the  executive  council.  The  follow- 
ing year,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  he  was  elected  to  the  general  Congress,  and 


JAMES  MONEOE. 


305 


was  present  at  Annapolis  when  Washington  resigned  his  military  commission 
to  that  body.  He  originated  the  first  movement,  in  1785,  which  led  to  the 
constitutional  convention,  in  1787.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Virginia  legis- 
lature in  1787,  and  the  following  year  he  was  a  delegate  in  the  State  convention 
to  consider  the  Federal  Constitution.  He  took  part  with  Patrick  Henry  and 
others  in  opposition  to  its  ratification,  yet  he  was  elected  one  of  the  first  United 
States  Senators  from  Virginia,  under  that  instrument,  in  1789.  He  remained  in 
that  body  until  1794,  when  he  was  appointed  to  succeed  Gouverneur  Morris  as 
minister  at  the  French  court.  Washington  recalled  him,  in  1796;  and  two 
years  afterward  he  was  elected  governor  of  Virginia.  He  served  in  that  office 
for  three  years,  when  Mr.  Jefferson  appointed  him  envoy  extraordinary  to  act 
with  Mr.  Livingston  at  the  court  of  Napoleon.  He  assisted  in  the  negotiations 
for  the  purchase  of  Louisiana,  and  then  went  to  Spain  to  assist  Mr.  Pinckney  in 
endeavors  to  settle  some  boundary  questions.  They  were  unsuccessful.  In 
1807,  he  and  Mr.  Pinckney  negotiated  a  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  but  it  was 
unsatisfactory,  and  was  never  ratified.  That  year  Mr.  Monroe  returned  to  the 
United  States. 

Mr.  Monroe  was  again  elected  governor  of  Virginia,  in  1811,  and  soon  after- 
ward President  Madison  called  him  to  his  cabinet  as  Secretary  of  State.  He 
also  performed  the  duties  of  Secretary  of  War,  for  awhile,  and  remained  in  Mr. 
Madison's  cabinet  during  the  residue  of  his  administration.  In  1816,  he  was 
elected  President  of  the  United  States,  and  was  reflected,  in  1820,  with  great 


306  THADDEUS  KOSCIUSCZKO. 

unanimity,  the  Federal  party,  to  which  he  had  always  been  opposed,  having 
become  almost  extinct,  as  a  separate  organization.  At  the  end  of  his  second 
term,  in  1825,  Mr.  Monroe  retired  from  office,  and  made  his  residence  in  Loudon 
county,  Virginia,  until  early  in  1831,  when  he  accepted  a  home  with  his  son-in- 
law,  Samuel  L.  Grouverneur,  in  the  city  of  New  York.  He  was  soon  afterward 
attacked  by  severe  illness,  which  terminated  his  life  on  the  4th  of  July,  1831, 
when  he  was  in  the  seventy-second  year  of  his  age. 


THADDEUS    KOSCIUSCZKO. 

WHAT  has  been  said  of  the  American  citizenship  of  La  Fa^ette,  Steuben,  and 
De  Kalb,  is  true  of  Kosciusczko.  His  deeds  naturalized  him,  and  wo 
claim  him  as  our  own,  though  born  in  far-off  Lithuania,  the  ancient  Sarmatia. 
That  event  occurred  in  the  year  1756.  He  was  descended  from  one  of  the  most 
ancient  and  noble  families  of  Poland,  and  was  educated  for  the  profession  of  a 
soldier,  first  in  the  military  school  at  Warsaw,  and  afterward  in  France.  Love 
enticed  him  from  "Warsaw.  He  eloped  with  a  young  lady  of  rank  and  fortune, 
was  pursued  and  overtaken  by  her  proud  father,  and  was  driven  to  the  alter- 
native of  killing  the  parent  or  abandoning  the  maid.  He  chose  the  latter,  and 
went  to  Paris.  There  he  became  acquainted  with  Silas  Deane,  the  accredited 
commissioner  of  the  revolted  American  colonies,  who  filled  the  soul  of  the  young 
Pole  with  intense  zeal  to  fight  for  liberty  in  America,  and  win  those  honors 
which  Deane  promised.  He  came  in  the  Summer  of  1770,  and  presented  him- 
self to  "Washington.  "  "What  can  you  do?"  asked  the  commander-in-chief.  "Try 
me,"  was  the  laconic  reply.  "Washington  was  pleased  with  the  young  man, 
made  him  his  aid,  and,  in  October  of  that  year,  the  Continental  Congress  gave 
him  the  appointment  of  engineer  in  the  army,  with  the  rank  of  colonel.  He  was 
in  the  Continental  service  during  the  whole  of  the  war,  and  was  engaged  in  most 
of  the  important  battles  in  which  "Washington  in  the  North,  or  Greene  in  the 
South,  commanded.  He  was  greatly  beloved  by  the  American  officers,  and  was 
cordially  admitted  to  membership  in  the  Society  of  the  Cincinnati.  At  the  close 
of  the  war  he  returned  to  Poland,  whose  sovereign  had  permitted  him  to  draw 
his  sword  in  America,  and  was  made  a  major-general  by  Poniatowski,  in  1789. 

In  the  Polish  campaign  against  Russia,  in  1792,  Kosciusczko  greatly  distin- 
guished himself;  and  in  the  noble  attempt  of  his  countrymen,  in  1794,  to  regain 
their  lost  liberty,  he  was  chosen  general-in-chief.  Soon  afterward,  at  the  head 
of  four  thousand  men,  he  defeated  twelve  thousand  Russians.  Invested  with 
the  powers  of  a  military  Dictator,  he  boldly  defied  the  combined  armies  of  Russia 
and  Prussia,  amounting  to  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men.  At 
length  success  deserted  him ;  and,  in  October,  1794,  his  troops  were  overpowered 
in  a  battle  about  fifty  miles  from  Warsaw.  He  was  wounded,  fell  from  his  horse, 
and  was  made  prisoner,  exclaiming,  "The  end  of  Poland!" 

"  Hope  for  a  season  bade  the  world  farewell. 
And  Freedom  shrieked  when  Kosciusczko  fell." — CAMPBELL. 

The  hero  was  cast  into  prison,  in  St.  Petersburg,  by  the  Empress  Catherine. 
When  she  died,  the  Emperor  Paul  liberated  him,  and  presented  him  with  his  own 
sword.  Kosciusczko  courteously  refused  the  blade,  and  then  uttered  that  terrible 
rebuke  for  the  destroyers  of  Poland — that  noble  sentiment  of  a  Patriot's  heart — 
"I  have  no  longer  need  of  a  sword,  since  I  have  no  longer  a  country  to  defend." 
Ho  never  again  wore  a  military  weapon. 


CHARLES  LEE.  307 


In  the  Summer  of  1797,  Kosciusczko  visited  America,  and  was  received  with 
distinguished  honors.  Congress  awarded  him  a  life-pension,  and  gave  him  a 
tract  of  land,  for  his  revolutionary  services.  The  following  year  ho  went  to 
Fraace,  purchased  an  estate  near  Fontainebleau,  and  resided  there  until  1814. 
He  went  to  Switzerland,  and  settled  at  Soleure,  in  1816.  Early  the  following 
year  he  abolished  serfdom  on  his  family  estates  in  Poland.  On  the  16th  of  Oc- 
tober, 1817,  that  noble  patriot  died,  at  the  age  of  sixty-one  years.  His  body 
was  buried  in  the  tomb  of  the  ancient  kings  of  Poland,  at  Cracow,  with  great 
pomp ;  and  at  Warsaw  there  was  a  public  funeral  in  his  honor.  The  Senate  of 
Cracow  decreed  that  a  lofty  mound  should  be  erected  to  his  memory,  on  the 
heights  of  Bronislawad ;  and  for  three  years  men  of  every  class  and  age  toiled 
in  the  erection  of  that  magnificent  cairn,  three  hundred 'feet  in  height.  The 
cadets  of  the  Military  Academy,  at  West  Point,  on  the  Hudson,  erected  an  im- 
posing monument  there  to  the  memory  of  Kosciusczko,  in  1829,  at  a  cost  of 
five  thousand  dollars.  His  most  enduring  monument  is  the  record  of  his  deeds 
on  the  pages  of  History. 


CHARLES    LEE. 

"  P OILING  WATER"  was  the  significant  name  which  the  Mohawk  Indians 
D  gave  to  Charles  Lee,  when  he  resided  among  them,  and  bore  the  honors 
of  a  chief.1  His  character  was  indeed  like  boiling  water — hot  and  restless.  He 
was  a  native  of  Wales,  where  he  was  born  in  1731.  His  father  was  an  officer 
in  the  British  army ;  and  it  is  asserted  that  the  fiery  litfle  Charles  received  a 
military  commission  from  George  the  Second,  when  only  eleven  years  of  age. 
In  all  studies,  and  especially  those  pertaining  to  military  services,  he  was  very 
assiduous,  and  became  master  of  several  of  the  continental  languages.  Love  of 
adventure  brought  him  to  America,  in  1756,  as  an  officer  in  the  British  army, 
and  he  remained  in  service  here  during  a  greater  part  of  the  French  and  Indian 
war.  He  then  returned  to  England;  and,  in  1762,  he  bore  a  colonel's  com- 
mission, and  served  under  Burgoyne,  in  Portugal.  After  that  ho  became  a 
violent  politician,  in  England;  and,  in  1770,  he  crossed  the  channel,  and  rambled 
all  over  Europe,  like  a  knight-errant,  for  about  three  years.  His  energy  of 
character  and  military  skill  made  him  a  favorite  at  courts,  and  he  became  an  aid 
to  Poniatowski,  King  of  Poland.  With  that  monarch's  embassador,  he  went  to 
Constantinople  as  a  sort  of  Polish  Secretary  of  Legation,  but,  becoming  tired  of 
court  inactivity  and  court  etiquette,  he  left  the  service  of  his  royal  patron,  went 
to  Paris,  came  to  America  toward  the  close  of  1773,  and,  at  the  solicitation  of 
Colonel  Horatio  Gates,  whom  he  had  known  in  England,  he  was  induced  to  buy 
an  estate  in  Berkeley  county,  Virginia,  and  settle  there.  He  resigned  his  com- 
mission in  the  British  army,  and  became  an  American  citizen. 

When  the  Continental  army  was  organized,  in  June,  1775,  Charles  Lee  was 
appointed  one  of  the  four  major-generals,  and  accompanied  Washington  to  Cam- 
bridge. He  was  active  there  until  the  British  were  driven  from  Boston,  in  the 
Spring  of  1776,  when  he  marched,  with  a  considerable  force,  to  New  York,  and 
afterward  proceeded  southward  to  watch  the  movements  of  Sir  Henry  Clinton. 
Ho  participated  in  the  defence  of  Charleston,  as  commander-in-chief ;  and  after 
the  British  were  repulsed,  he  joined  Washington,  at  New  York.  After  the  battle 


1.  His  tarry  among  the  Mohawk  Indians  was  at  near  the  close  of  the  French  and  Indian  war,  or  about 
the  year  1762.  They  were  greatly  pleased  with  his  martial  and  energetic  character,  adopled  him  as  a 
son,  according  to  custom,  and  made  him  a  chief  of  the  nation,  with  the  title  of  Soiling  Water. 


808  HUGH  SWINTON  LEGAEE. 

at  White  Plains,  and  the  withdrawal  of  a  great  portion  of  the  American  army  to 
New  Jersey,  General  Lee  was  left  in  command  of  a  force  on  the  east  side  of  the 
Hudson.  While  Washington  was  retreating  toward  the  Delaware,  at  the  close 
of  Autumn,  Leo  tardily  obeyed  his  orders  to  reinforce  the  flying  army,  and  was 
made  a  prisoner  while  tarrying  in  the  interior  of  New  Jersey.  His  services  were 
lost  to  the  country  until  May,  1778,  when  he  was  exchanged  for  General  Pres- 
cott,  captured  in  Rhode  Island  by  Colonel  Barton.1  A  month  afterward  he  was 
in  command  at  Monmouth,  where,  during  the  hot  contest  of  battle,  he  was 
sternly  rebuked  by  Washington,  for  a  shameful  and  unnecessary  retreat.  That 
rebuke  on  the  battle-field  wounded  Lee's  pride,  and  he  wrote  insulting  letters  to 
the  commander-in-chief.  For  this,  and  for  misconduct  before  the  enemy,  he  was 
suspended  from  command,  pursuant  to  a  verdict  of  a  court-martial.  Congress 
confirmed  the  sentence,  and  he  left  the  army  in  disgrace. 

It  had  been  evident  from  the  beginning  that  General  Lee  was  desirous  of 
obtaining  the  chief  command,  in  place  of  Washington,  and  it  was  generally  be- 
lieved that  he  desired  to  injure  the  commander-in-chief  by  causing  the  loss  of 
the  battle  at  Monmouth.  The  verdict  gave  general  satisfaction.  The  event 
made  his  naturally  morose  temper  exceedingly  irascible,  and  Lee  lived  secluded 
on  his  estate  in  Berkeley,  for  awhile.  Then  he  went  to  Philadelphia,  took  lodg- 
ings in  a  house  yet  [1855]  standing,  that  once  belonged  to  William  Penn,  and 
there  died  in  neglect,  at  the  age  of  fifty-one  years.  General  Lee  was  a  brilliant 
man  in  many  respects,  but  he  lacked  sound  moral  principles,  was  rough  and 
profane  in  language,  and  neither  feared  nor  loved  God  or  man.  In  his  will,  ho 
bequeathed  his  "soul  to  the  Almighty,  and  his  body  to  the  earth;"  and  then 
expressed  a  desire  not  to  be  buried  within  a  mile  of  any  Presbyterian  or  Ana- 
baptist meeting-house,  giving  as  a  reason  that  he  had  "kept  so  much  bad  com- 
pany in  life,  that  he  did  not  wish  to  continue  the  connection  when  dead."  His 
remains  lie  in  the  burial-ground  of  Christ  Church,  Philadelphia. 


0 


HUQH    SWINTON    LEOAIIE. 

NE  of  the  most  promising  men  of  the  Palmetto  State  was  Hugh  S.  Legaro, 
who  was 

"  Snatched  all  too  early  from  that  august  fame 
That,  on  the  serene  heights  of  silvered  age, 
Waited  with  laurelled  hands." 

He  was  born  at  Dorchester,  near  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  about  the  year 
1800.  He  was  of  Huguenot  descent.  His  father  died  when  he  was  an  infant, 
and  he  was  left  to,  the  charge  of  an  excellent  mother.  At  the  age  of  nine  years 
he  was  placed  in  the  school  of  Mr.  King  (afterward  promoted  to  the  bench  in 
South  Carolina),  in  Charleston,  and  was  finally  prepared  for  college  by  the  ex- 
cellent Reverend  Mr.  Waddel.  He  learned  rapidly,  and  at  the  age  of  fourteen 
years  he  entered  the  College  of  South  Carolina,  where  he  was  graduated  with 
the  highest  honors.  The  profession  of  the  law  became  his  choice,  and  for  three 
years  he  studied  assiduously  under  the  direction  of  Judge  King,  his  early  tutor. 
He  then  went  to  Europe,  where  he  remained  between  two  and  three  years. 
Soon  after  his  return,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  South  Carolina  legislature. 
While  there,  some  of  those  measures  which  tended  toward  political  disunion 
were  commenced,  but  Mr.  Legare  was  always  found  on  the  Federal  side  of  the 
question,  for  he  regarded  the  UXION  with  the  utmost  reverence. 

1.  See  sketch  of  William  Barton. 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS.  309 

In  1827,  Mr.  Legare  and  other  cultivated  gentlemen  in  the  South  commenced 
the  publication  of  the  "  Southern  Review,"  a  literary  and  political  periodical, 
which  soon  acquired  great  influence.  Mr.  Legare  was  one  of  the  chief  and  most 
popular  of  the  contributors.  He  was  soon  called  to  fill  an  important  public 
station,  by  receiving  the  appointment  of  attorney-general  of  South  Carolina.  Ho 
performed  the  duties  of  that  office  with  great  ability,  until  1832,  when  he  was 
appointed  minister  to  Belgium,  by  President  Jackson.  There  he  remained  until 
early  in  1837,  when  he  returned  to  Charleston,  and  was  almost  immediately 
elected  to  a  seat  in  Congress.  He  first  appeared  there  at  the  extraordinary 
session  called  by  President  Van  Buren  to  consider  the  financial  affairs  of  the 
country.  There  he  displayed  great  statesmanship  and  fine  powers  of  oratory, 
and  was  regarded  by  friends  and  foes  as  a  rising  man.  At  the  end  of  his  con- 
gressional term,  he  resumed  the  practice  of  law  in  Charleston,  and  was  pursuing 
his  avocations  with  great  energy  and  eclat,  when  President  Harrison,  in  1841, 
called  him  to  his  cabinet  as  attorney -general  of  the  United  States.  He  continued 
in  that  station,  under  President  Tyler,  until  the  Summer  of  1843,  when,  on  the 
occasion  of  a  visit  to  Boston,  with  the  chief  magistrate,  in  June,  he  was  seized 
with  illness,  and  died  there,  on  the  20th  of  that  month,  at  the  age  of  about  forty- 
three  years. 


JOHN    QUINCY    ADAMS. 

THOMSON  truthfully  says: 

"  Whoe'er  amidst  the  sons 
Of  reason,  valor,  liberty,  and  virtue, 
Displays  distinguished  merit,  is  a  noble 
Of  nature's  own  creating." 

Judged  by  such  a  book  of  heraldry,  John  Quincy  Adams  appears  a  true  noble- 
man of  nature,  for,  in  the  midst  of  many  wise,  and  good,  and  great  men,  he  stood 
preeminent  in  virtue.  He  was  the  worthy  son  of  a  worthy  sire,  the  elder  Pres- 
ident Adams,  and  was  born  at  the  family  mansion  at  Quincy,  Massachusetts,  on 
the  llth  of  July,  1767.  At  the  age  of  eleven  years  he  accompanied  his  father 
to  Europe,  who  went  thither  as  minister  of  the  newly-declared  independent 
United  States  of  America.  In  Paris  he  was  much  in  the  society  of  Dr.  Franklin 
and  other  distinguished  men ;  and  it  may  be  truly  said  that  he  entered  upon  the 
duties  of  a  long  public  life  before  he  was  twelve  years  of  age,  for  then  he  learned 
the  useful  rudiments  of  diplomacy  and  statesmanship.  He  attended  school  in 
Paris  and  Amsterdam,  and  was  in  the  University  of  Leyden,  for  awhile.  In 
1781,  when  only  fourteen  years  of  age,  he  accompanied  Mr.  Dana  (United  States 
minister)  to  St.  Petersburg,  as  private  secretary;  and  during  the  Winter  of 
1782-3,  he  traveled  alone  through  Sweden  and  Denmark,  and  reached  the 
Hague  in  safety,  where  his  father  was  resident  minister  for  the  United  States. 
When  his  father  was  appointed  minister  to  England,  he  returned  home,  and  en- 
tered Harvard  University,  as  a  student,  where  he  was  graduated,  in  July,  1787. 

At  the  age  of  twenty  years,  young  Adams  commenced  the  study  of  law  with 
Judge  Parsons,  at  Newburyport,1  and  entered  upon  its  practice  in  Boston.  Pol- 
itics engaged  his  attention,  and  he  wrote  much  on  topics  of  public  interest, 
especially  concerning  the  necessity  of  neutrality,  on  the  part  of  the  United  States, 

1.  While  Adams  was  a  student,  Judge  Parsons  was  chosen  to  address  President  Washington  on  the 
occasion  of  his  visit  to  New  England.  The  judge  asked  each  of  his  students  to  write  an  address.  That 
of  Adams  was  chosen  and  delivered  by  the  tutor. 


310 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS. 


in  relation  to  the  quarrels  of  other  nations.  On  the  recommendation  of  Mr. 
Jefferson,  President  Washington  introduced  him  into  the  public  service  of  his 
country,  by  appointing  him  resident  minister  in  the  Netherlands,  in  1794.  He 
was  afterward  sent  to  Portugal,  in  the  same  capacity,  but  on  his  way  he  was 
met  by  a  new  commission  from  his  father  (then  President),  as  resident  minister 
at  Berlin.  He  was  married  hi  London,  in  1797,  to  a  young  lady  from  Maryland, 
then  residing  there  with  her  father.  Mr.  Adams  returned  to  Boston,  in  1801, 
and  the  following  year  he  was  elected  to  the  Massachusetts  Senate.  In  1803, 
he  was  sent  to  the  Federal  Senate,  where  he  uniformly  supported  the  measures 
of  Mr.  Jefferson,  the  old  political  opponent  of  his  father.  Because  of  that  act  of 
obedience  to  the  dictates  of  his  conscience  and  judgment,  the  legislature  of 
Massachusetts  censured  him,  and  he  resigned  his  seat,  in  1806.  His  republican 
sentiments  increased  with  his  age;  and,  in  1809,  Mr.  Madison  appointed  him 
minister  plenipotentiary  to  the  Russian  court.  There  he  was  much  caressed  by 
the  Emperor  Alexander;  and  when,  in  1812,  war  was  declared  between  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain,  that  monarch  offered  his  mediation.  It  was 
rejected;  and,  in  1814,  Mr.  Adams  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  American 
commission  appointed  to  negotiate  a  treaty  of  peace  with  Great  Britain.  He 
also  assisted  in  negotiating  a  commercial  treaty  with  the  same  government ;  and, 
in  1815,  he  was  appointed  minister  to  the  English  court.  There  he  remained 
until  1817,  when  President  Monroe  called  him  to  his  cabinet  as  Secretary  of 
State.  He  filled  that  office  with  signal  ability  during  eight  years,  and  then  suc- 
ceeded Mr.  Monroe  as  President  of  the  United  States. 


DAVID   CEOCKETT.  311 


Mr.  Adams'  administration  of  four  years  was  remarkable  for  its  calmness,  and 
the  general  prosperity  of  the  country.  There  was  unbroken  peace  with  foreign 
nations,  and  friendly  domestic  relations,  until  near  the  close  of  his  term,  when 
party  spirit  became  rampant.  He  was  succeeded  in  office  by  General  Jackson, 
in  the  Spring  of  1829,  and  retired  to  private  life,  more  honored  and  respected 
by  all  parties  than  any  retiring  president  since  "Washington  left  the  chair  of 
state.  His  countrymen  would  not  allow  him  to  remain  in  repose;  and,  in  1830, 
he  was  elected  a  representative  in  Congress.  In  December,  1831,  he  took  his 
seat  there,  and  from  that  time  until  his  death  he  continued  to  be  a  member  of 
the  House  of  Representatives,  by  consecutive  reelections.  There  he  was  distin- 
guished for  wise,  enlightened,  and  liberal  statesmanship ;  and,  like  the  Earl  of 
Chatham,  death  came  to  him  at  his  post  of  duty.  He  was  suddenly  prostrated 
by  paralysis,  while  in  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  at  Washington, 
on  the  22d  of  February,  1848,  and  expired  in  the  Speaker's  room,  in  the  capitol, 
on  the  following  day.  His  last  words  were,  "  This  is  the  end  of  earth."  He 
was  in  the  eighty-first  year  of  his  age. 


DAVID    CROCKETT. 

"  T)E  sure  you  are  right,  then  go  ahead,"  is  a  wise  maxim  attributed  to  .one 
1)  whose  life  was  a  continual  illustration  of  the  sentiment.  Every  body  has 
heard  of  "Davy  Crockett,"  the  immortal  back-woodsman  of  Tennessee — the 
"crack  shot"  of  the  wilderness — eccentric  but  honest  member  of  Congress — the 
"  hero  of  the  Alamo " — yet  few  know  his  origin,  his  early  struggles,  and  the 
general  current  of  his  life.  History  has  but  few  words  concerning  him,  but  tra- 
dition is  garrulous  over  his  many  deeds. 

David  Crockett  was  born  at  the  mouth  of  the  Limestone  river,  Greene  county, 
East  Tennessee,  on  the  17th  of  August,  1786.  His  father  was  of  Scotch-Irish 
descent,  and  took  a  prominent  part  in  the  War  for  Independence.  It  was  all  a 
wilderness  around  David's  birth-place,  and  his  soul  communed  with  nature  in 
its  unbroken  wildness,  from  the  beginning.  He  grew  to  young  manhood,  with- 
out any  education  from  books  other  than  he  received  in  his  own  rude  home. 
When  only  seven  years  of  age,  David's  father  was  stripped  of  most  of  his  little 
property,  by  fire.  He  opened  a  tavern  in  Jefferson  county,  where  David  was  his 
main  "help  "until  the  age  of  twelve  years.  Then  he  was  hired  to  a  Dutch 
cattle-trader,  who  collected  herds  in  Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  and  drove  them 
to  the  eastern  markets.  This  vagrant  life,  full  of  incident  and  adventure,  suited 
young  Crockett,  but,  becoming  dissatisfied  with  his  employer,  he  deserted  him, 
and  made  his  way  back  to  his  father's  home.  After  tarrying  there  a  year,  ho 
ran  away,  joined  another  cattle-merchant,  and  at  the  end  of  the  journey*  in  Vir- 
ginia, ho  was  dismissed,  with  precisely  four  dollars  in  his  pocket.  For  three 
years  he  was  "knocking  about,"  as  he  expressed  it,  and  then  sought  his  father's 
home  again.  He  now  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  a  school  for  a  few  weeks ;  and 
finally,  after  several  unsuccessful  love  adventures,  he  married  an  excellent  girl,  and 
became  a  father,  in  1810,  when  twenty-four  years  of  age.  He  settled  on  the  banks 
of  the  Elk  river,  and  was  pursuing  the  quiet  avocation  of  a  farmer,  in  Summer, 
and  the  more  stirring  one  of  hunter,  in  the  Autumn,  when  war  was  commenced 
with  Great  Britain,  in  1812.  Crockett  was  among  the  first  to  respond  to  Gen- 
eral Jackson's  call  for  volunteers,  and  under  that  brave  leader  he  was  engaged 
in  several  skirmishes  and  battles.  He  received  the  commission  of  colonel,  at  the 
close  of  the  war,  as  a  testimonial  of  his  worth.  His  wife  had  died  while  he  was 


312  NATHANIEL  MACON. 


in  the  army,  and  several  small  children  were  left  to  his  care.  The  widow  of  a 
deceased  friend  soon  came  to  his  aid,  and  in  this  second  wife  he  found  an  excel- 
lent guardian  for  his  children.  Soon  after  his  marriage,  he  removed  to  Laurens 
county,  where  he  was  made  justice  of  the  peace,  and  was  chosen  to  represent 
the  district  in  the  State  legislature.  Generous,  full  of  fun,  possessing  great 
shrewdness,  and  "honest  to  a  fault,"1  Crockett  was  very  popular  in  the  legis- 
lature and  among  his  constituents.  In  the  course  of  a  few  years  he  removed  to 
"Western  Tennessee,  where  he  became  a  famous  hunter.  With  the  rough  back- 
woodsmen there  he  was  a  man  after  their  own  hearts,  and  he  was  elected  to  a 
seat  in  Congress,  in  1828,  and  again  in  1830.2  When  the  Americans  in  Texas 
commenced  their  war  for  independence,  toward  the  close  of  1835,  Crockett 
hastened  thither  to  help  them,  and  at  the  storming  of  the  Alamo,  at  Bexar,  on 
the  6th  of  March,  1836,  that  eccentric  hero  was  killed.  He  was  then  fifty  years 
of  age. 


NATHANIEL    MACON. 

JOHN  RANDOLPH,  of  Roanoke,  made  his  friend,  Nathaniel  Macon,  one  of 
f )  the  legatees  of  his  estate,  and  in  his  Will,  written  with  his  own  hand,  in 
1832,  he  said  of  him,  "He  is  the  best,  and  purest,  and  wisest  man  I  ever  knew." 
This  was  high  praise  from  one  who  was  always  parsimonious  in  commendations, 
but  it  was  eminently  deserved.  Mr.  Macon  was  born  in  Warren  county,  North 
Carolina,  in  1757.  His  early  youth  gave  noble  promise  of  excellent  maturity, 
and  it  was  fulfilled  in  ample  measure.  After  a  preparatory  course  of  study,  he 
entered  Princeton  College.  The  tempest  of  the  Revolution  swept  over  New 
Jersey,  toward  the  close  of  1776,  and  that  institution  was  closed.  Young  Macon 
returned  home,  his  heart  glowing  with  sentiments  of  patriotism,  which  had 
ripened  under  the  genial  culture  of  President  Witherspoon,  and  he  entered  the 
military  service  with  his  brother,  as  a  volunteer  and  private  soldier.  While  in 
the  army  the  people  elected  him  to  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons  of  his  native 
State.  Then,  as  ever  afterward,  he  was  unambitious  of  office  as  well  as  of  money, 
and  it  was  with  great  difficulty  that  he  was  persuaded  to  leave  his  companions- 
in-arms,  and  become  a  legislator.  He  yielded,  and  then  commenced  his  long  and 
brilliant  public  career.  He  served  as  a  State  legislator  for  several  years,  when,  in 
1791,  he  was  chosen  to  represent  his  district  in  the  Federal  Congress.  In  that 
body  he  took  a  high  position  at  once ;  and  so  acceptable  were  his  services  to  his 
constituents,  that  he  was  regularly  reflected  to  the  same  office  until  1815,  when, 
without  his  knowledge,  the  legislature  of  North  Carolina  gave  him  a  seat  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States.  During  five  years  of  his  service  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  [1801-1806],  he  was  Speaker  of  that  body.  He  continued  in 
the  Senate  until  1828,  when,  in  the  seventy-first  year  of  his  age,  he  resigned, 
and  retired  to  private  life.  At  that  time  he  was  a  trustee  of  the  University  of 
North  Carolina,  and  justice  of  the  peace  for  Warren  county.  These  offices  ho 
also  resigned,  and  sought  repose  upon  his  plantation. 

1.  Many  anecdotes  illustrative  of  Colonel  Crockett's  honesty  and  generosity  have  been  related.    Dur- 
ing a  season  of  scarcity,  he  bought  a  flat-boat  load  of  corn,  and  offered  it  for  sale  cheap.     "  Have  you 
got  money  to  pay  for  it?"  was  his  first  question  when  a  man  came  to  buy.    If  he  replied  "yes,"  Crockett 
would  say,  "  Then  you  can't  have  a  kernel.     I  brought  it  here  to  sell  to  people  who  have  no  money." 

2.  He  and  the  opposing  candidate  canvassed  their  district  together,  and  made  stump  speeches.     Crock- 
ett's opponent  had  written  his  speech,  and  delivered  the  same  one  at  different  places.     David  was  al- 
ways original,  and  he  readily  yielded  to  his  friend's  request  to  speak  first.     At  a  point  where  both  wished 
to  make  a  good  impression,  Crockett  desired  to  speak  first.     His  opponent  could  not  refuse  ;  but,  to  his 
dismay,  he  heard  David  repeat  his  own  speech.    The  colonel  had  heard  it  to  often  that  it  was  fixed  in 
his  memory.    The  other  candidate  was  fpeechle-is,  and  lost  his  election. 


SAMUEL   SLATEK.  313 


Mr.  Macon  was  called  from  his  retirement,  in  1835,  to  assist  in  revising  the 
Constitution  of  North  Carolina.  He  was  chosen  president  of  the  convention  as- 
sembled for  that  purpose ;  and  the  instrument  then  framed  bears  the  marked 
impress  of  his  genius  and  thoroughly  democratic  sentiments.  The  following 
year  he  was  chosen  a  presidential  elector,  gave  his  vote  in  the  Electoral  College 
for  Martin  Van  Buren,  and  then  left  the  theatre  of  public  life,  forever.  The  sands 
of  his  existence  were  almost  numbered.  God  mercifully  spared  him  the  pains 
of  long  sickness.  He  had  been  subject  to  occasional  cramps  in  the  stomach. 
On  the  morning  of  the  29th  of  June,  1837,  he  arose  early,  as  usual,  dressed,  and 
shaved  himself,  and  after  breakfast  was  engaged  in  cheerful  conversation.  At 
ten  o'clock  he  was  seized  with  a  spasm,  and  without  a  struggle  after  the  first 
paroxysm,  he  expired.  Peacefully  his  noble  soul  left  its  earth-tenement  for  its 
home  in  light  ineffable.  As  he  lived,  so  he  died — a  good  man  and  a  bright  example. 

Mr.  Macon  was  a  member  of  Congress  thirty-seven  consecutive  years ;  a  longer 
term  of  service  than  was  ever  given  by  one  man.  He  was  appropriately  styled 
the  Father  of  the  House,  and  men  of  all  creeds  looked  up  to  him  as  a  Patriarch 
for  counsel  and  guidance. 


SAMUEL    SLATER. 

T^HE  man  who  contributes  to  the  comfort  of  a  people  and  the  real  wealth  of  a 
JL  nation  by  opening  new  and  useful  fields  of  industry,  is  a  public  benefactor. 
For  such  reasons,  Samuel  Slater,  the  father  of  the  cotton  manufacture  in  the 
United  States,  ought  to  be  held  in  highest  esteem.  He  was  a  native  of  England, 
and  was  born  near  Belper,  in  Derbyshire,  on  the  9th  of  June,  1768.  After 
acquiring  a  good  education,  his  father,  who  was  a  practical  farmer,  apprenticed 
Samuel  to  the  celebrated  Jedediah  Strutt,  an  eminent  mechanic,1  and  then  a 
partner  with  Sir  Richard  Arkwright,  in  the  cotton-spinning  business.  Samuel 
was  then  fourteen  years  of  age,  and  being  expert  with  the  pen  and  at  figures,  he 
was  much  employed  as  a  clerk  in  the  counting-room.  At  about  that  time  he 
lost  his  father,  but  found  a  good  guardian  in  his  master.  He  evinced  an  invent- 
ive genius  and  mechanical  skill,  at  the  beginning,  and  he  soon  became  the 
"  favorite  apprentice."  During  the  last  four  or  five  years  of  hig  apprenticeship 
he  was  Strutt  and  Arkwright's  "right  hand  man,"  as  general  overseer  both  in 
the  making  of  machinery  and  in  the  manufacturing  department. 

Before  he  had  reached  his  majority,  young  Slater  had  formed  a  design  of  going  to 
America,  with  models  of  all  of  Arkwright's  machines.  At  that  time  the  convey- 
ing of  machinery  froin  England  to  other  countries  was  prohibited,  and  severe 
government  restrictions  were  interposed.  Slater  knew  that,  but  was  not  dis- 
heartened. He  revealed  his  plans  to  no  one,  and  when  he  left  his  mother,  he 
gave  her  the  impression  that  he  was  only  going  to  London.  With  a  little  money, 
his  models,  and  his  indentures  as  an  introduction,  he  sailed  for  New  York  on  the 
13th  of  September,  1789,  and  arrived  in  November.2  There  he  was  employed 
for  a  short  time,  when  a  better  prospect  appeared  in  a  proposition  from  Messrs. 
Almy  and  Brown,  of  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  to  join  with  them  in  preparations 
for  cotton-spinning.  He  went  there,  was  taken  to  the  little  neighboring  village 
of  Pawtucket,  by  the  venerable  Moses  Brown,3  and  there,  on  the  18th  of  Jan- 
uary, 1790,  he  commenced  making  machinery  with  his  own  hands.  Eleven 

1.  Mr.  Strntt  was  the  inventor  of  the  Derby  ribbed-stocking:  machine. 

2.  Just  as  the  ship  sailed,  he  intrusted  a  letter  for  his  moth  r  to  the  hands  of  a  friend,  in  which  he 
gave  her  information  of  his  destination  and  his  intentions.    They  never  met  again  on  earth. 

3.  See  sketch  of  Moses  Brown. 

14 


314: 


SAMUEL   SLATER. 


months  afterward  they  "  started  three  cards,  drawing  and  roving,  and  seventy- 
two  spindles,  which  were  worked  by  an  old  fulling-mill  water-wheel  in  a  clothier's 
establishment."  There  they  remained  about  twenty  months,  when  they  had 
several  thousand  pounds  of  yarn  on  hand,  after  making  great  efforts  to  weave  it 
up  and  sell  it.  Such  was  the  beginning  of  the  successful  manufacture  of  cotton 
in  the  United  States.  Tench  Coxe  and  others  had  urged  the  establishment  of 
that  branch  of  industry ;  and  several  capitalists  had  attempted  it,  but  with  poor 
success  with  imperfect  machinery. 

In  1793,  Mr.  Slater  was  a  business  partner  with  Almy  &  Brown,  and  they 
built  a  factory  yet  [1855]  standing,  at  Pawtucket.  At  about  the  same  time  he 
married  Hannah  Wilkinson,  of  a  good  Rhode  Island  family;  and,  in  1795,  imi- 
tated Mr.  Strutt  by  opening  a  Sabbath-school  for  children  and  youths,  in  his 
own  house.  The  manufacturing  business  was  gradually  extended,  and  Mr. 
Slater  took  pride  in  sending  to  Mr.  Strutt,  specimens  of  cotton  yarn,  equal  to  any 
manufactured  in  Derbyshire.  When  war  with  Great  Bntain  commenced,  in 
1812,  and  domestic  manufactures  felt  a  powerful  impulse,  there  were  seven 
thousand  spindles  in  operation  in  Pawtucket  alone ;  and  within  the  little  State 
of  Rhode  Island,  there  were  over  forty  factories  and  about  forty  thousand  spindles. 
A  writer,  in  1813,  estimated  the  number  of  cotton  factories  built  and  in  course 
of  erection,  eastward  of  the  Delaware  river,  at  five  hundred.1 

1.  According  io  the  census  of  1850,  the  number  of  cotton  establishments  then  in  the  United  States,  was 
1,094,  in  which  more  than  seventy-four  millions  of  dollars  were  invested.     These  gave  employment  to 


LUCRETIA  MARIA  DAVIDSON.  315 

* 

"When  President  Jackson  made  his  eastern  tour,  he  visited  Pawtucket,  and, 
with  the  Vice-President,  called  on  Mr.  Slater  and  thanked  him  in  the  name  of 
the  nation,  for  what  he  had  done.  "You  taught  us  how  to  spin,"  said  the  Pres- 
ident, "so  as  to  rival  Great  Britain  in  her  manufactures;  you  set  all  these 
thousands  of  spindles  at  work,  which  I  have  been  delighted  in  viewing,  and 
which  have  made  so  many  happy  by  lucrative  employment."  "  Yes,  sir,"  Mr. 
Slater  replied ;  "  I  suppose  that  I  gave  out  the  psalm,  and  they  have  been  sing- 
ing to  the  tune  ever  since." 

Mr.  Slater  died  at  Webster,  Massachusetts,  (where  he  had  built  a  factory,  and 
resided  during  the  latter  years  of  his  life),  on  the  20th  of  April,  1834,  at  the  age 
of  about  sixty-seven  years. 


LUCRETIA    MARIA    DAVIDSON. 

"  In  the  cold  moist  earth  we  laid  her,  when  the  forest  cast  the  leaf, 
And  we  wept  that  one  so  lovely  should  have  a  lot  so  brief; 
Yet  not  unmeet  it  was,  that  one,  like  that  young  friend  of  ours, 
So  gentle  and  so  beautiful,  should  perish  with  the  flowers." — BRYANT. 

"  THERE  is  no  record,"  says  Dr.  Sparks,  "of  a  greater  prematurity  of  intellect, 
L  or  a  more  beautiful  development  of  native  delicacy,  sensibility,  and  moral 
purity,"  than  was  exhibited  by  Miss  Lucretia  Maria  Davidson,  the  wonderful 
child-poet.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Dr.  Oliver  Davidson,  and  a  mother  of  the 
highest  susceptibility  of  feeling  and  purity  of  taste.  She  was  born  at  Plattsburg, 
New  York,  on  the  27th  of  September,  1808.  Her  body  was  extremely  fragile 
from  earliest  infancy  until  her  death.  The  splendor  and  strength  of  her  intellect 
appeared  when  language  first  gave  expression  to  her  ideas,  and  at  the  age  of 
four  years  she  was  a  thoughtful  student  at  the  Plattsburg  Academy.  She  shrunk 
from  playmates,  found  no  pleasure  in  their  sports,  and  began  to  commit  her 
thoughts  (which  came  in  numbers)  to  paper,  before  she  had  learned  to  write. 
Before  she  was  six  years  of  age  her  mother  found  a  large  quantity  of  paper 
covered  with  rude  characters  and  ruder  drawings  of  objects,  which  Lucretia  had 
made,  and  carefully  hidden.  She  had  secretly  managed  to  make  a  record  of  her 
thoughts,  in  letters  of  printed  form,  as  she  could  not  write,  and  on  deciphering 
them,  her  mother  discovered  that  they  were  regular  rhymes,  and  the  rude  draw- 
ings were  intended  as  illustrative  pictures.  Here  was  an  author  illustrating  her 
own  writings  before  she  was  six  years  of  age !  The  discovery  gave  the  mother 
much  joy,  but  the  child  was  inconsolable.  The  key  to  the  arcanum  of  her  greatest 
happiness  was  in  the  possession  of  another. 

Lucretia's  thirst  for  knowledge  increased  with  her  years,  and  she  would  some- 
times exclaim,  "Oh  that  I  could  grasp  all  at  once!"  She  wrote  incessantly, 
when  leisure  from  domestic  employment  would  allow,  but  she  destroyed  all  she 
wrote,  for  a  long  time.  Her  earliest  preserved  poem  was  an  epitaph  on  a  pet 
Robin,  written  in  her  ninth  year.  At  the  age  of  eleven  her  father  took  her  to 
see  a  room  which  was  decorated  for  the  purpose  of  celebrating  the  birth-day  of 
Washington  in.  The  ornaments  had  no  charms  for  her ;  the  character  of  Wash- 
ington occupied  all  her  thoughts ;  and,  on  returning  home,  she  wrote  five  excel- 
lent verses  on  that  theme.  An  aunt  ventured  to  express  doubts  of  their  origin- 
ality. The  truthful  child  was  shocked  at  the  hint  of  deception,  and  she  imme- 
diately wrote  a  poetic  epistle  to  her  aunt,  on  the  subject,  which  convinced  her 
that  Lucretia  was  the  author. 

over  ninety-two  thousand  persons,  male  and  female,  and  produced  annually  manufactured  goods  valued 
at  more  than  sixty  millions  of  dollars.  The  value  of  the  raw  material  used  was  almost  thirty-five  mil- 
lions of  dollars. 


316  JOHN  ARMSTRONG. 


Before  she  was  twelve  years  of  age  Lucretia  had  read  most  of  the  works  of 
the  standard  English  poets ;  the  whole  of  the  writings  of  Shakspeare,  Kotzebuc, 
and  Goldsmith ;  much  history,  and  several  romances  of  the  better  sort.  She  was 
passionately  fond  of  Nature,  and  she  would  sit  for  hours  watching  the  clouds, 
the  stars,  the  storm,  and  the  rainbow,  and  when  opportunity  offered,  mused 
abstractedly  in  the  fields  and  forests,  as  if  in  silent  admiration.  On  such  occa- 
sions her  dark  eye  would  light  up  with  ethereal  splendor,  and  she  seemed  really 
to  commune  with  beings  of  angelic  natures.  At  length  her  mother  became  an 
invalid,  and  the  cares  of  the  household  devolved  on  Lucretia.  The  little  maiden 
toiled  on  and  hoped  on ;  ever  obedient,  self-sacrificing,  and  thoughtful  of  her 
mother's  happiness,  while  the  wings  of  her  spirit  fluttered  vehemently  against 
the  prison  bars  of  circumstances,  which  kept  it  from  soaring.  "Oh,"  she  said 
one  day  to  her  mother,  "  if  /  only  possessed  half  the  means  of  improvement  which 
I  see  others  slighting,  I  should  be  the  happiest  of  the  happy.  I  am  now  sixteen 
years  old,  and  what  do  I  know?  Nothing!"  Light  soon  beamed  upon  her 
darkened  path.  A  generous  stranger  offered  to  give  her  every  advantage  of 
education.  The  boon  was  joyfully  accepted,  and  Lucretia  was  placed  in  Mrs. 
"Willard's  school,  in  Troy.  There  she  drank  too  deep  and  ardently  at  the  fount- 
ain of  knowledge — her  application  to  study  was  too  intense,  and  her  fragile 
frame  was  too  powerfully  swayed  by  the  energies  of  her  spirit.  During  her  first 
vacation  she  suffered  severe  illness.  After  her  recovery  she  was  placed  in  Miss 
Gilbert's  school,  in  Albany,  but  soon  another  illness  prostrated  her.  She  rallied, 
and  then  went  home  to  die.  Like  a  flower  when  early  frost  hath  touched  it, 
that  sweet  creature  faded  and  drooped;  and  on  the  27th  of  August,  1825,  the 
perfume  of  her  mortal  life  was  exhaled  in  the  sunbeams  of  immortality,  before 
she  had  completed  her  seventeenth  year. 

The  last  production  of  Miss  Davidson's  pen  was  written  during  her  final  ill- 
ness, and  was  left  unfinished.1  She  had  a  dread  of  insanity,  and  that  poem 
was  on  the  subject.  She  wrote, 

"  That  thought  comes  o'er  me  in  the  hour 

Of  grief,  of  sickness,  or  of  sadness  ; 
'Tis  not  the  dread  of  Death — 'tis  moi'c  : 
It  is  the  dread  of  Madness  !" 

God  mercifully  spared  her  that  affliction,  and  her  intellect  was  clear  as  a  sun- 
beam when  death  closed  her  eyelids. 


JOHN    ARMSTRONGS. 

WHILE  the  remnant  of  the  Continental  army  was  encamped  near  Newburgh, 
a  few  months  before  they  were  finally  disbanded,  and  much  dissatisfaction 
existed  among  the  officers  and  soldiers  because  of  the  seeming  injustice  of  Con- 
gress, anonymous  addresses  appeared,  couched  in  strong  language,  and  calculated 
to  increase  the  discontents  and  to  excite  the  sufferers  to  mutinous  and  rebellious 
measures.  Those  addresses,  which  exhibited  great  genius  and  power  of  ex- 
pression, were  written  by  John  Armstrong,  one  of  the  aids  to  General  Gates, 
and  a  young  man  then  about  twenty-five  years  of  age.  He  was  a  son  of  General 
John  Armstrong,  of  Pennsylvania,  who  was  distinguished  in  the  French  and 

1.  In  1829,  a  collection  of  her  writings  was  published,  with  the  ti:ie  of  Amir  Khan  and  other  Poems, 
prefaced  with  a  biographical  sketch,  by  Professor  S.  F.  B.  Morse.  That  volume  forms  her  appropriate 
monument. 


JOHN   ARMSTRONG. 


Indian  war,  and  participated  in  the  military  events  of  the  Revolution.  John 
was  born  at  Carlisle,  Pennsylvania,  on  the  25th  of  November,  1758,  and  was 
educated  in  the  college  at  Princeton.  While  a  student  there,  in  1775,  he  joined 
the  army  as  a  volunteer  in  Potter's  Pennsylvania  regiment,  and  was  soon  after- 
ward appointed  aid-de-camp  to  General  Mercer.  He  continued  with  that  brave 
officer  until  his  death,  at  Princeton,  early  in  1777,  when  he  took  the  same  posi- 
tion in  the  military  family  of  General  Gates,  with  the  rank  of  major.  He  was 
with  that  officer  until  the  capture  of  Burgoyne,  In  1780,  he  was  promoted  to 
adjutant-general  of  the  Southern  army,  when  Gates  took  the  command,  but  be- 
coming ill  on  the  banks  of  the  Pedee,  Colonel  Otho  II.  Williams  took  his  place, 
until  just  before  the  battle  near  Camden.  Then  he  resumed  it,  and  continued 
with  General  Gates  until  the  close  of  the  war.  It  seems  to  have  been  at  the 
suggestion  of  General  Gates  and  other  distinguished  officers,  that  Major  Armstrong 
prepared  the  celebrated  Newburgh  Addresses.1 

Under  the  administration  of  the  government  of  Pennsylvania,  by  Dickenson 
and  Franklin,  Major  Armstrong  was  Secretary  of  State  and  adjutant-general. 
These  posts  he  occupied  in  1787,  when  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  Congress. 
In  the  Autumn  of  that  year  he  was  appointed  one  of  three  judges  for  the  Western 
Territory,  but  he  declined  the  honor.  In  1789,  he  married  a  sister  of  Chancellor 
Livingston,  of  New  York,  and  purchased  a  beautiful  estate  on  the  banks  of  the 
Hudson,  in  the  upper  part  of  Dutchess  county,  where  he  resided  until  his  death, 
fifty-four  years  afterward.  .  He  continually  refused  public  office  until  the  year 
1800,  when,  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote  of  the  legislature  of  New  York,  ho 
was  chosen  to  represent  the  State  in  the  Federal  Senate.  He  resigned  that  office 
ia  1802,  but  was  reflected,  in  1803.  A  few  months  afterward,  President  Jeffer- 
son appointed  him  minister  plenipotentiary  to  France,  where  he  remained  more 
than  six  years,  a  portion  of  the  time  performing  the  duties  of  a  separate  mission 
to  Spain,  with  which  he  was  charged. 

In  1812,  Major  Armstrong  was  commissioned  a  brigadier-general  in  the  army 
of  the  United  States,  and  took  command  in  the  city  of  New  York,  until  called 
to  the  cabinet  of  President  Madison,  the  next  year,  as  Secretary  of  War.  Ho 
accepted  the  office  with  much  reluctance,  for  he  had  many  misgivings  concerning 
the  success  of  the  Americans.  Ho  at  once  made  some  radical  changes  by  sub- 
stituting young  for  old  officers,  and  thereby  made  many  bitter  enemies.  The 
capture  and  conflagration  of  Washington,  in  1814,  led  to  his  retirement  from 
office.2  Public  opinion  then  held  him  chiefly  responsible  for  that  catastrophe, 
but  documentary  evidence  proves  the  injustice  of  that  opinion.  No  man  ever 
took  office  with  purer  motives,  or  left  it  with  a  better  claim  to  the  praise  of  a 
faithful  servant.  He  retired  to  private  life,  resumed  agricultural  pursuits,  and 
lived  almost  thirty  years  after  leaving  public  employment.  He  died  at  his  seat 
at  Red  Hook,  Dutchess  county,  on  the  1st  of  April,  1843,  in  the  eighty-fifth  year 
of  his  age.  General  Armstrong  was  a  pleasing  writer.  He  is  known  to  the 
public,  as  such,  chiefly  by  his  Life  of  Montgomery,  Life  of  Wayne,  and  Notices  of 
the  War  c/1812. 

1.  The  first  Address  set  forth  the  grievances  of  the  army,  evoked  the  use  of  power  in  their  hands  to 
redress  them,  and  proposed  a  meeting  of  officers  to  take  matters  into  their  own  hands,  and  compel  Con- 
gress to  be  just.    Washington  defeated  the  movement  by  timely  counter-measures.     The  attempt,  how- 
ever, aroused  Congress  and  the  whole  country  to  a  sense  of  duty  toward  the  army,  and  a  satisfactory 
result  was  accomplished.     No  doubt  the  Address  and  its  bold  propositions  were  put  forth  with  patriotic 
iatentions.     Such  was  the  opinion  expressed  to  the  author,  by  Washington,  fourteen  years  afterward. 

2.  In  August,  1814,  a  strong  British  force,  under  General  Ross,  penetrated  Maryland  by  way  of  the 
Patuxent,  and  after  a  severe  skirmish  with  the  Americans  at  Bladensburg,  pushed  on  to  Washington 
city,  burned  the  capitol,  the  President-house,  and  other  public  and  private  buildings,  and  then  hastily 
retreated.    Armstrong  was  censured  for  not  making  necessary  preparations  for  the  invasion,  as  was 
alleged. 


318 


HOSEA  BALLOU. 


HOSEA    BALLOU. 

fPHAT  gifted  and  remarkable  promulgates  of  the  religious  doctrine  known  as 
J.  Universalism,  Hosea  Ballou,  was  the  founder  of  the  sect  in  this  country, 
and  for  that  reason,  as  well  as  for  the  patriarchal  age  to  which  he  attained,  as  a 
minister,  he  was  appropriately  called  by  the  affectionate  and  reverential  name 
of  Father  Ballou.  He  was  a  native  of  Richmond,  New  Hampshire,  where  he 
was  born  on  the  30th  of  April,  1771.  His  early  years  were  passed  among  the 
beautiful  and  romantic  scenery  of  Ballou's  Dale,  and  in  the  groves,  "  God's  first 
temples,"  his  devotional  feelings  were  early  stirred  and  long  nourished.  His 
early  education  was  utterly  neglected ;  and  it  was  when  he  was  upon  the  verge 
of  manhood  that  he  first  studied  English  grammar,  and  applied  himself  earnestly 
to  the  acquirement  of  knowledge  from  books.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  years  he 
first  managed  to  read  and  write  fluently,  after  a  great  deal  of  unaided  industry 
and  perseverance.  In  those  efforts,  the  family  Bible  became  his  chief  instructor, 
and  it  was  the  instrument,  under  God,  that  made  him  what  he  was  in  after  life. 
Farm  labor  was  the  daily  occupation  of  his  youth,  and  it  gave  him  physical  vigor 
for  the  severe  labors  of  a  long  life. 

At  the  age  of  eighteen  years  young  Ballou  became  a  member  of  the  Baptist 
Church.  His  religious  views  soon  changed.  He  became  possessed  of  the  idea 
that  all  would  be  finally  happy,  because  "  God  is  love,  and  his  grace  is  impar- 
tial." The  idea  took  the  form  of  a  creed,  and  an  earnest  longing  to  have  others 
enjoy  what  he  felt  to  be  a  great  blessing,  caused  him  to  commence  preaching, 
feebly  yet  effectively,  at  the  age  of  twenty  years.  At  a  common  school  and  an 


HOSEA  BALLOU.  319 


academy  he  studied  intensely  "  night  and  day,  slept  little  and  ate  little."  Then 
he  commenced  school  teaching  for  a  livelihood,  studying  assiduously  all  the 
while,  and  preaching  his  new  and  startling  doctrine,  occasionally.  At  the  age 
of  twenty-four  years  he  abandoned  school  teaching,  and  dedicated  his  life  to  the 
promulgation  of  his  peculiar  religious  views,  travelling  from  place  to  place,  and 
subsisting  upon  the  free  bounties  of  increasing  friends.  His  itinerant  labors 
ceased  in  1794,  when  he  became  pastor  of  a  congregation,  first  in  Dana,  Massa- 
chusetts, and  then  in  Barnard,  Vermont.  His  warfare  upon  prevailing  religious 
opinions  produced  many  bitter  opponents,  yet  meekly  and  firmly  he  labored  on, 
spreading  the  circle  of  his  influence  with  tongue  and  pen.  Mr.  Ballou  was 
undoubtedly  the  first  who,  in  this  country,  inculcated  Unitarianism ;  and  every 
where  his  doctrine  was  new,  and  "  a  strange  thing  in  Israel." 

In  1804,  Mr.  Ballou  published  Notes  on  the  Parables,  and  soon  afterward  his 
Treatise  on  the  Atonement,  appeared.  These  were  met  by  heartiest  condemnation 
on  the  part  of  his  opponents,  while  they  were  very  highly  esteemed  by  his  religious 
adherents.  In  1807,  he  was  called  to  the  pastoral  charge  of  a  congregation  at 
Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  where  he  continued  to  preach  to  crowded  houses 
on  the  Sabbath,  and  teach  a  school  during  the  week,  until  the  war  between  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain  was  kindled,  in  1812.  He  was  in  the  midst  of 
those  who  violently  opposed  the  war ;  and  because  he  patriotically  espoused  the 
cause  of  his  country,  he  made  many  bitter  enemies,  and  impaired  his  usefulness. 
He  accordingly  left  Portsmouth,  in  1815,  and  accepted  a  call  to  Salem.  While 
there  he  engaged  in  the  celebrated  controversy  with  Rev.  Abner  Kneeland, 
whose  faith  in  Christianity  had  failed  him.  It  ended  happily  in  the  avowed 
conviction  of  Mr.  Kneeland  of  the  truths  of  revealed  religion.  Mr.  Ballou  re- 
mained in  Salem  about  two  years,  when  he  was  invited  to  make  Boston  his  field 
of  labor.  Near  the  close  of  1817,  he  was  installed  pastor  of  the  Second  Univer- 
salist  Church,  in  Boston,  and  that  connection  was  only  severed  by  his  death. 
There  his  ministrations  were  attended  by  immense  congregations,  and  he  laid 
the  foundations  of  Unitarianism  and  Universalism  strong  and  deep  in  the  New 
England  metropolis. 

In  1819,  Mr.  Ballou  established  the  Universalist  Magazine,  which  soon  acquired 
high  reputation  for  its  literary  merits  and  denominational  value.  The  following 
year  he  compiled  a  collection  of  Hymns  for  the  use  of  the  sect ;  and  soon  after- 
ward he  made  a  professional  visit  to  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  where  great 
numbers  of  people  listened  to  his  eloquent  and  logical  discourses.  In  Philadel- 
phia, he  preached  in  the  Washington  Garden  Saloon,  no  meeting-house  being 
large  enough  to  hold  the  immense  crowds  that  gathered  to  hear  him.  In  1831, 
he  was  associated  with  a  nephew  in  publishing  the  Universalist  Expositor,  a 
quarterly  periodical ;  and  at  about  the  same  time  volumes  of  his  Sermons  and 
Lectures  were  published.  In  1 834,  he  wrote  and  put  forth  An  Examination  of 
the  Doctrine  of  Future  Retribution ;  and  in  the  meanwhile  his  pen  was  ever  busy 
in  contributions  to  denominational  publications.  Old  age  now  whitened  his 
locks,  yet  his  "eye  was  not  dim  nor  his  natural  forces  abated,"  and  at  the  age  of 
seventy-two  years  [1843]  he  made  a  long  journey  to  Akron.  Ohio,  to  attend  a 
national  convention  of  Universalists.  Thousands  flocked  thither  to  see  and  hear 
the  far-famed  Father  Ballou,  and  were  gratified.  He  was  permitted  to  return  to 
his  beloved  home  and  flock  in  safety,  and  continued  his  pastoral  labors  almost 
nine  years  longer.  Finally,  on  the  7th  of  June,  1852.  that  eminently  great  and 
good  man  died,  at  the  age  of  a  little  more  than  eighty  years.  He  had  been  a 
distinguished  preacher  for  the  long  period'  of  sixty  years.  He  was  a  vigorous 
yet  generous  polemic,  a  pleasing  and  voluminous  writer,  and  an  eloquent  speaker. 
His  thoughts,  occasionally  expressed  in  verse,  exhibit  many  beautiful  specimens 
of  genuine  poetry. 


320  STEPHEN"  HOPKINS. 


STEPHEN    HOPKINS 

YTEXT  to  Doctor  Franklin,  Stephen  Hopkins,  of  Rhode  Island,  was  the  oldest 
li  member  of  the  Continental  Congress,  who  signed  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. He  was  born  in  that  portion  of  the  town  of  Providence  now  called 
Scituate,  on  the  7th  of  March,  17Q7.  The  opportunities  at  that  time  and  place 
for  acquiring  an  education  were  few  and  weak,  and  Hopkins  became  a  self- 
taught  man  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  term.  He  was  a  farmer  until  the  age  of 
twenty-five  years,  when  he  commenced  mercantile  business  in  Providence.  The 
following  year  he  was  chosen  to  represent  Scituate  in  the  Rhode  Island  legis- 
lature, and  was  annually  reflected  until  1738.  He  resumed  his  seat  there  in 
1741,  and  was  made  Speaker  of  the  House.  From  that  time  until  1751,  he  was 
almost  every  year  a  member  and  the  Speaker  of  the  lower  House.  In  the  latter 
year  he  was  chosen  chief  justice  of  the  colony. 

Mr.  Hopkins  was  a  delegate  from  Rhode  Island  in  the  first  colonial  conven- 
tion, held  at  Albany,  in  1754,1  and  two  years  afterward  he  was  elected  governor 
of  Rhode  Island.  That  position  he  held,  Avith  but  a  single  interruption,  until 
1767  ;  and  he  was  very  efficient  in  promoting  the  enlistment  of  volunteers  in  his 
province,  for  the  expeditions  against  the  French  and  Indians.  He  even  took  a 
captain's  commission,  and  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  a  volunteer  corps,  in 
1757,  but  a  change  in  events  rendered  their  services  unnecessary,  and  they  were 
disbanded.  When  the  quarrel  with  the  mother  country  commenced,  Governor 
Hopkins  took  a  decided  stand  in  favor  of  the  colonists ;  and  officially  and  un- 
officially he  labored  incessantly  to  promote  a  free  and  independent  spirit  among 
his  countrymen.  A  proof  of  his  love  of  justice,  as  well  as  a  love  of  liberty,  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  he  endeavored  to  procure  legislative  enactments  in  favor 
of  the  emancipation  of  slaves  in  Rhode  Island,  and  he  actually  gave  freedom  to 
all  owned  by  himself.  When,  in  1774,  a  general  Congress  was  proposed,  Gov- 
ernor Hopkins  warmly  advocated  the  measure,  and  was  chosen  one  of  the  dele- 
gates for  Rhode  Island.  At  the  same  time  he  held  the  important  offices  of  chief 
justice  of  the  province  and  representative  in  its  Assembly.  In  1775,  he  was  a 
member  of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  in  Rhode  Island,  and  was  again 
elected  to  Congress.  There  he  advocated  political  independence;  and  in  the 
Summer  of  1776,  he  affixed  his  remarkable  signature2  to  the  noble  manifesto 
which  declared  it. 

Mr.  Hopkins  was  elected  to  Congress,  for  the  last  time,  in  1778,  and  was  one 
of  the  committee  who  perfected  the  Articles  of  Confederation  for  the  government 
of  the  United  States,  then  fighting  under  one  banner,  for  independence.  He  was 
then  more  than  seventy  years  of  age,  yet  he  was  actively  engaged  in  the  duties 
of  almost  every  important  committee  while  he  held  his  seat  in  Congress.  He  re- 
tired in  1780,  and  then  withdrew  from  public  life  to  enjoy  repose  and  indulge  in 
his  favorite  study  of  the  exact  sciences.  He  was  a  distinguished  mathematician, 
and  rendered  efficient  service  to  scientific  men  in  observing  the  transit  of  Venus, 
in  1769.3  But  his  season  of  earthly  repose  and  happiness  was  short.  The 
Patriot  and  Sage  went  down  into  the  grave  on  the  19th  of  July,  1785,  in  the 
seventy-eighth  year  of  his  age.  Through  life  he  had  been  a  constant  attendant 
of  the  religious  meetings  of  Friends,  or  Quakers,  and  was  ever  distinguished 
among  men  as  a  sincere  Christian. 

1.  See  sketch  of  Dr.  Franklin. 

2.  It  is  remarkable  because  of  its  evidence  that  his  hand  trembled  excessively.    That  tremulousness 
is  not  attributable,  as  might  be  suspected  of  a  less  bold  man,  to  fear  inspired  by  the  occasion,  but  by  a 
malady  known  as  shaking  pal*y,  with  which  he  had  been  troubled  many  years.     I  have  a  document 
before  me.  signed  by  him  in  1761.    His  sigmxture  at  that  time  betrays  the  same  unsteadiness  of  hand, 
though  not  in  the  same  degree  as  in  1776.  3.  See  sketches  of  Winthrop  and  Rittenhouse. 


ALBERT   GALLATIN.  321 


ALBERT    GALL A TIN. 

DURING  the  most  important  period  in  the  progress  of  our  Republic  after  its 
permanent  organization,  in  1789,  Albert  Gallatin,  a  native  of  Geneva, 
Switzerland,  was  an  active,  useful,  and  highly  patriotic  citizen  and  public  officer, 
lie  was  born  on  the  29th  of  January,  1761.  His  family  connections  were  of  the 
highest  respectability.  Among  these  was  the  celebrated  M.  Necker  and  his 
equally-distinguished  daughter,  Madame  de  Stael.  His  father,  who  died  when 
Albert  was  four  years  of  age,  was  then  a  councillor  of  state.  At  a  proper  ago 
Albert  was  placed  in  the  University  of  Geneva,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1779. 
He  had  early  felt  and  manifested  a  zeal  for  republican  institutions,  and  declining 
the  commission  of  a  lieutenant-colonel  in  the  service  of  one  of  the  German  sov- 
ereigns, he  came  to  America,  in  1780,  when  only  nineteen  years  of  age.  In 
November  of  that  year  he  entered  the  public  service  of  his  adopted  country,  by 
taking  command  of  a  small  fort  at  Machias,  Maine,  which  was  garrisoned  by 
volunteers  and  Indians.  At  the  close  of  the  war  he  taught  the  French  language 
in  Harvard  University,  for  awhile.  Having  received  his  patrimony  from  Europe, 
in  1784,  he  purchased  lands  in  Virginia.  He  afterward  established  himself  on 
the  banks  of  the  Monongahela,  in  Pennsylvania,  where  his  talents  were  soon 
brought  into  requisition.  He  was  a  member  of  the  convention  to  revise  the 
constitution  of  Pennsylvania,  in  1789,  and  for  two  succeeding  years  he  was  rep- 
resentative of  the  State  legislature.  In  that  body  those  financial  abilities, 
which  afterward  rendered  him  eminent  in  the  administration  of  the  national 
treasury,  were  manifested.  In  1793,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States,  but,  by  a  strictly  party  vote,  he  was  excluded  from  it  on  the 
ground  of  ineligibility,  because  nine  years  had  not  elapsed  since  his  naturaliza- 
tion in  Virginia.1  He  was  immediately  elected  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  where  he  was  confessedly  the  Republican  leader,  and  was  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  most  logical  debaters  and  soundest  statesmen  in  that  body. 

In  1801,  President  Jefferson  appointed  Mr.  Gallatin  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
He  exercised  the  functions  of  that  office  with  rare  ability,  during  the  whole  of 
Jefferson's  administration,  and  a  part  of  Madison's,  until  1813,  when  he  went  to 
St.  Petersburg,  as  one  of  the  envoys  extraordinary  of  the  United  States,  to  nego- 
tiate with  Great  Britain  under  the  mediation  of  Russia.2  He  was  appointed  one 
of  the  commissioners  who  negotiated  a  treaty  of  peace  with  Great  Britain,  at 
Ghent,  in  1814;  and  early  the  following  year  he  assisted  in  forming  a  commer- 
cial treaty  with  the  same  power.  From  1816  until  1823,  Mr.  Gallatin  was  res- 
ident minister  of  the  United  States  at  the  French  court,  and  in  the  meanwhile 
had  been  employed  on  extraordinary  missions  to  the  Netherlands  and  to  Great 
Britain.  In  these  diplomatic  services  he  was  ever  skilful,  and  always  vigilant  in 
guarding  the  true  interests  of  his  country.  Other  official  stations  had  been 
proffered  him,  while  he  was  abroad.  President  Madison  invited  him  to  become 
his  Secretary  of  State,  or  Prime  Minister ;  and  President  Monroe  offered  him  a 
place  in  his  cabinet,  as  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  He  also  declined  the  nomination 
of  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  which  the  Democratic  party  offered  him, 
in  1824. 

Mr.  Gallatin  returned  home,  in  1828,  and  became  a  resident  of  New  York  city, 
where  he  took  an  active  interest  in  all  matters  pertaining  to  the  public  good. 
In  1831,  he  wrote  the  memorial  to  Congress  of  the  Free-Trade  Convention,  and 
from  that  time  until  1839,  he  gave  a  noble  example  of  the  true  method  of  bank- 
ing, while  he  was  President  of  the  National  Bank.  He  was  one  of  the  founders, 

1.  See  clause  3,  section  3,  article  I.  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

2.  See  sketches  of  John  Quincy  Adams  and  James  A.  Bayard. 

14* 


322  DAVID   WOOSTEH. 


and  first  president  of  the  council  of  the  New  York  University.  At  the  time  of 
his  death  he  was  President  of  the  New  York  Historical  Society,  and  also  of  the 
American  Ethnological  Society,  of  which  he  was  chief  founder.  A  few  days 
before  his  death  he  was  elected  one  of  the  first  members  of  the  Smithsonian  In- 
stitute. His  departure  occurred  at  his  residence  at  Astoria,  Long  Island,  on  the 
12th  of  August,  1849,  at  the  ago  of  more  than  eighty-eight  years. 


DAVITS     WOOSTER. 

FOR  almost  fourscore  years  the  grave  of  one  of  America's  best  heroes  was  al- 
lowed to  remain  unhonored  by  a  memorial-stone,  until  tradition  had  almost 
forgotten  the  hallowed  spot.  That  hero  was  David  Wooster,  who  lost  his  life  in 
the  defence  of  the  soil  of  his  native  State  against  that  ruthless  invader,  General 
Tryon.  He  was  born  at  Stratford,  Connecticut,  on  the  2d  of  March,  1710,  and 
was  graduated  at  Yale  College,  in  1738.  When  war  between  England  and 
Spain  broke  out  the  following  year,  he  entered  the  provincial  army  as  a  lieuten- 
ant, and  was  soon  afterward  promoted  to  the  captaincy  of  a  vessel  built  and 
armed  by  the  colony  as  a  guarda  costa,  or  coast-guard.  In  1740,  he  married 
Miss  Clapp,  daughter  of  the  President  of  Yale  College;  and,  in  1745,  we  observe 
his  first  movements  in  military  life  as  a  captain  in  Colonel  Burr's  regiment  in  the 
expedition  against  Louisburg.  From  Cape  Breton  he  went  to  Europe  in  com- 
mand of  a  cartel-ship.1  But  he  was  not  permitted  to  land  in  France,  and  ho 
sailed  for  England,  where  he  was  received  with  great  honor.  He  was  presented 
to  the  king,  became  a  favorite  at  court,  and  was  made  a  captain  in  the  regular 
service,  under  Sir  "William  Pepperell.  When  the  French  and  Indian  war  in 
America  broke  out,  he  was  commissioned  a  provincial  colonel  by  the  governor 
of  Connecticut,  and  was  finally  promoted  to  brigadier-general.  He  was  in  serv- 
ice to  the  end  of  that  war;  and  when,  in  1775,  the  revolutionary  fires  kindled 
into  a  flame,  he  was  found  ready  to  battle  manfully  for  his  country  in  its  struggle 
for  freedom.  He  was  with  Arnold  and  Allen  at  the  capture  of  Ticonderoga;  and 
when  the  Continental  army  was  organized,  a  few  weeks  later,  he  received  the 
appointment  of  brigadier-general,  third  in  rank.  He  was  in  command  in  Canada, 
in  the  Spring  of  1776 ;  and  soon  after  his  return  to  Connecticut,  he  was  appointed 
first  major-general  of  the  militia  of  that  State.  In  that  capacity  he  was  actively 
engaged  when  Tryon  invaded  the  State,  in  the  Spring  of  1777,  and  penetrated 
to  and  burned  Danbury.  Near  Ridgefield  he  led  a  body  of  militia  in  pursuit  of 
the  invader,  and  there,  in  a  warm  engagement,  on  Sunday,  the  27th  of  April,  he 
was  fatally  wounded  by  a  musket-ball.  He  was  conveyed  to  Danbury  on  a 
litter,  where  he  lived  long  enough  for  his  wife  and  children  to  arrive  from  New 
Haven,  and  soothe  his  dying  hours.  He  expired  on  the  2d  of  May,  1777,  at  the 
age  of  sixty-seven  years,  and  was  interred  in  the  village  burying-ground.  Con- 
gress ordered  a  monument  to  be  erected  to  his  memory,  but  that  act  of  justice 
has  never  been  accomplished  by  the  Federal  government.  The  legislature  of 
Connecticut  finally  resolved  to  erect  a  memorial;  and  in  April,  1854,  the  corner- 
stone of  a  monument  was  laid,  with  imposing  ceremonies.2  On  opening  the 
grave,  the  remains  of  the  hero's  epaulettes  and  plume,  and  the  fatal  bullet,  were 
found  among  his  bones. 

1.  A  Tessel  commissioned  in  time  of  war  to  carry  proposals  between  belligerent  powers.    It  claims  the 
same  respect  as  a  flag  sent  from  one  army  to  another. 

2.  On  that  occasion  the  Honorable    Henry  C.   Deming  pronounced  an  eloquent  oration,  which  was 
subsequently  published  in  pamphlet  form. 


THOMAS   MACDONOUGH. 


323 


0 


THOMAS    MACDONOUGH. 

N  the  very  day  when  Washington  resigned  his  military  commission  into  the 
custody  of  Congress,  from  whom  he  had  received  it,  a  future  American 
naval  hero  was  born  in  Newcastle  county,  Delaware.  It  was  on  the  23d  of 
December,  1783,  and  that  germ  of  a  hero  was  Thomas  Macdonough.  At  the 
age  of  fifteen  years  he  obtained  a  midshipman's  warrant,  and  in  the  war  with 
Tripoli  he  was  distinguished  for  bravery.  He  was  one  of  the  daring  men  selected 
by  Decatur  to  assist  him  in  burning  the  Philadelphia  frigate,1  and  he  partook  of 
the  honors  of  that  brilliant  exploit.  When  war  with  Great  Britain  was  proclaimed 
in  1812,  Macdonough  held  a  lieutenant's  commission,  having  received  it  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1807.  He  was  ordered  to  service  on  Lake  Champlain,  and  in  July,  1813, 
he  was  promoted  to  master-commandant.  There  was  very  little  for  him  to  do, 
in  that  quarter,  for  some  time,  and  he  became  restive  in  comparative  idleness. 
But  opportunity  for  action  came  at  last,  and  he  gladly  accepted  and  nobly  im- 
proved it.  The  war  in  Europe  having  been  suspended,  early  in  1814,  by  the 
abdication  of  Napoleon  and  the  capture  of  Paris  by  the  allied  armies,  the  British 
forces  in  America  were  largely  augmented.  Quite  a  strong  army,  under  Sir 


1.  See  sketch  of  Decatur. 


324  SAMUEL   SMITH. 


George  Prevost,  invaded  New  York  from  the  St.  Lawrence ;  and  a  fleet,  under 
Commodore  Downie,  sailed  up  Lake  Champlain  to  cooperate  with  the  land  forces. 
They  were  called  "the  flower  of  Wellington's  army,  and  the  cream  of  Nelson's 
marines."  General  Macomb  was  in  command  of  a  small  land  force,  composed 
chiefly  of  local  militia,  and  Macdonough  had  a  little  squadron  of  four  ships  and 
ten  galleys,  with  an  aggregate  of  eighty-six  guns.  Such  was  the  force  which 
stood  in  the  way  of  the  sanguine  invader.  On  the  llth  of  September,  1814,  the 
British  land  and  naval  forces  both  approached.  The  conflict  was  short  but  de- 
cisive. Macdonough,  by  superior  nautical  skill  and  dexterity  in  the  management 
of  guns,  soon  caused  the  British  flag  to  fall,  when  Prevost,  in  dismay,  hastily 
retreated,  leaving  victory  with  the  Americans  on  both  land  and  water.1  The 
victory  was  hailed  with  great  joy  throughout  the  country,  and  Macdonough's 
fame  was  proclaimed  every  where,  in  oration  and  in  song.  Congress  awarded 
him  a  gold  commemorative  medal,  and  gave  him  the  commission  of  a  post  cap- 
tain. Other  substantial  rewards  were  bestowed.  The  State  of  New  York  gave 
him  one  thousand  acres  of  land;  that  of  Yermont,  two  hundred  acres;  and  the 
cities  of  New  York  and  Albany  each  gave  him  a  lot  of  ground.  At  about  the 
close  of  the  war,  Commodore  Macdonough's  health  gave  way,  yet  he  lived  for 
more  than  ten  years  with  the  tooth  of  consumption  undermining  his  citadel  of 
life.  He  died  on  the  10th  of  November,  1825,  at  the  age  of  about  forty-two 
years.  He  was  exemplary  in  every  relation  of  life,  and  had  but  few  of  the  com- 
mon faults  of  humanity.  His  bravery  was  born  of  true  courage,  not  of  mere 
intrepidity,  and  he  never  quailed  in  the  face  of  most  imminent  danger.  2 


SAMUEL    SMITH. 

SAMUEL  SMITH,  the  "hero  of  Fort  Mifflin,"  lived  more  than  sixty  years  after 
the  achievements  there,  which  won  for  him  that  appropriate  title.  He  was 
a  native  of  Lancaster  county,  Pennsylvania,  where  he  was  born  on  the  27th  of 
January,  1752.  His  father  was  a  distinguished  public  man,  first  in  Pennsylvania 
and  then  in  Maryland.  Samuel's  education  commenced  at  Carlisle,  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  was  completed  at  an  academy  in  Elkton,  Maryland,  after  his  father 
made  Baltimore  his  residence.  At  the  age  of  fourteen  years  he  entered  his 
father's  counting-house  as  a  clerk,  remained  there  five  years,  and  then,  in  1772, 
departed  for  Havre  as  supercargo  in  one  of  his  father's  vessels.  After  travelling 
extensively  on  the  Continent,  he  returned  home,  and  found  his  countrymen  in 
the  midst  of  the  excitements  of  the  opening  of  the  revolutionary  hostilities.  The 

1.  When  the  British  squadron  appeared  off  Cumberland-head,  Macdonough  knelt  on  the  deck  of  the 
Saratoga  (his  flag-ship),  in  the  midst  of  his  men,  and  prayed  to  the  God  of  Battles  for  aid.    A  curious 
incident  occurred  during  the  engagement  that  soon  followed.     A  British  ball  demolished  a  hen-coop  on 
board  the  Saratoga.    A  cock,  released  from  his  prison,  flew  into  the  rigging,  and  crowed  lustily,  at  the 
same  time  flapping  his  wings  with  triumphant  vehemence.     The  seamen  regarded  the  event  as  a  good 
omen,  and  they  fought  like  tigers,  while  the  cock  cheered  them  on  with  its  Growings,  until  the  British 
fl;ig  was  struck  and  the  firing  ceased. 

2.  On  one  occasion,  while  first-lieutenant  of  a  vessel,  lying  in  the  harbor  of  Gibraltar,  an  armed  boat 
from  a  British  man-of-war  boarded  an  American  brig  anchored  near,  in  the  absence  of  the  commander, 
and  carried  off  a  seaman.     Macdonough  manned  a  gig,  and  with  an  inferior  force,  made  chase  and  re- 
captured the  seaman.     The  captain  of  the  man-of-war  came  aboard  Macdonough's  vessel,  and  in  a  great 
rage  asked  him  how  he  dared  to  take  the  man  from  his  majesty's  boat.     "  He  was  an  American  seaman, 
and  I  did  my  duty,"  was  the  reply.     "  I'll  bring  my  ship  along  side,  and  sink  you,"  angrily  cried  the 
Briton.    "  That  you  can  do,"  coolly  responded  Macdonough,  "  but  while  she  swims,  that  man  you  will 
not  have."     The  captain,  roaring  with  rage,  said,  "  Supposing  I  had  been  in  that  boat,  would  you  have 
dared  to  commit  such  an  act?"     "  I  should  have  made  the  attempt,  sir,"  was  the  calm  reply.     "  What !" 
shouted  the  captain,  "  if  I  were  to  impress  men  from  that  brig,  would  you  interfere?"     "You  have  only 
to  try  it,  sir,"  was  Macdonough's  tantalizing  reply.    The  haughty  Briton  was  over-matched,  and  he  did 
not  attempt  to  try  the  metal  of  such  a  brave  young  man.     There  were  cannon  balls  in  his  coolness,  full 
of  danger.  I 


JEHUDI  ASIIMUX.  325 


battles  at  Lexington,  Concord,  and  Breed's  Hill,  had  been  fought.  Fired  with 
patriotic  zeal,  young  Smith  sought  to  serve  his  country  in  the  army ;  and  in 
January,  1776,  he  obtained  a  captain's  commission  in  Colonel  Smallwood's  regi- 
ment. He  was  soon  afterward  promoted  to  the  rank  of  major ;  and  early  in 
1777,  he  received  a  lieutenant-colonel's  commission.  In  that  capacity  he  served 
with  distinction  in  the  battle  of  Brandywine,  and  a  few  weeks  later  won  unfad- 
ing laurels  for  his  gallant  defence  of  Fort  Mifflin,  a  little  below  Philadelphia,  of 
which  he  was  commander.  There,  for  seven  weeks,  he  sustained  a  siege  by  a 
greatly  superior  force,  and  abandoned  the  fort  only  when  the  defences  were  no 
longer  tenable.  For  his  services  there,  Congress  voted  him  a  sword,  and  the 
country  rang  with  his  praises.  He  afterward  suffered  with  the  army  at  Valley 
Forge,  and  fought  on  the  plains  of  Monmouth. 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  Colonel  Smith  was  appointed  a  brigadier-general  of 
militia,  and  commanded  the  Maryland  troops  under  General  Lee,  in  quelling  the 
"Whiskey  Insurrection"  in  "Western  Pennsylvania.  He  was  active  in  support 
of  Washington's  administration  throughout;  and,  in  1793,  he  was  elected  to 
represent  the  Baltimore  district  in  the  Federal  Congress,  where  he  remained  for 
ten  consecutive  years.  He  held  the  commission  of  major-general  of  militia  dur- 
ing the  war  of  1812-15,  and  was  active  in  measures  to  repel  invading  Britons, 
at  Baltimore,  in  1814.  Two  years  afterward  he  was  again  elected  to  Congress, 
and  served  in  the  House  of  Representatives  for  six  years.  He  was  also  a  mem- 
ber of  the  United  States  Senate  for  many  years.  In  1836,  during  a  fearful  riot 
in  Baltimore,  his  military  services  were  again  brought  into  requisition,  and  by 
his  prompt  efforts  the  disturbance  was  soon  quelled.  The  mob  had  defied  the 
civil  authority,  and  were  wantonly  destroying  property,  when  the  aged  general 
appeared  in  their  midst,  bearing  the  American  flag,  arid  calling  upon  peaceably- 
disposed  citizens  to  rally  and  assist  him  in  sustaining  law  and  order.  That 
result  was  soon  accomplished.  In  the  Autumn  of  the  same  year,  when  at  the 
ago  of  more  than  eighty-four  years,  he  was  elected  mayor  of  Baltimore,  by  an 
almost  unanimous  vote.  He  held  that  office  by  reelection  until  his  death,  which 
occurred  on  the  22d  of  April,  1839,  in  the  eighty-seventh  year  of  his  age. 


JEHUDI    ASHMUN. 

THE  first  agent  of  the  American  Colonization  Society,  employed  to  plant  a  set- 
tlement of  free  negroes  in  the  land  of  their  fathers,  was  Jehudi  Ashmun, 
the  son  of  pious  parents  who  resided  near  the  western  shore  of  Lake  Champlain, 
in  the  State  of  New  York.  In  the  town  of  Champlain  he  was  born,  in  April, 
1794,  and  was  graduated  at  Burlington  College,  in  1816.  He  commenced  prep- 
arations for  the  ministry  in  the  theological  seminary  at  Bangor,  in  Maine,  but 
soon  made  his  residence  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  became  attached  to  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  there,  and  took  a  zealous  part  in  the  early  efforts 
to  found  a  colony  of  free  blacks  in  Africa.  His  zeal  and  usefulness  were  appre- 
ciated by  the  American  Colonization  Society;  and,  in  1822,  he  was  appointed 
to  take  charge  of  a  reinforcement  for  their  infant  settlement  in  Africa.  He  be- 
came the  general  agent  there,  and  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  perform  the  duties 
of  legislator,  soldier,  and  engineer.  Afflictions  fell  upon  him  at  the  beginning. 
His  wife  died ;  and  within  three  months  after  his  arrival,  when  the  whole  force 
of  the  colonists  consisted  of  only  thirty-five  men  and  boys,  he  was  attacked  by 
armed  savages.  They  were  repulsed,  but  in  December  they  returned  with 
greatly  increased  numbers,  and  utter  extermination  of  the  little  colony  seemed 


826  JOHN"  CALDWELL  CALHOUN. 

certain.  Again  the  savages  were  repulsed,  and  thoroughly  defeated.  For  six 
years  Mr.  Ashmun  labored  faithfully  there,  with  Lott  Gary,1  in  laying  the  found- 
ation of  the  Republic  of  Liberia,  but  the  malaria  of  the  lowlands  made  great 
inroads  upon  his  health,  month  after  month,  until  he  was  compelled  to  return  to 
America  to  recruit.  His  departure  was  a  great  grief  to  the  colonists,  who  now 
numbered  twelve  hundred  souls.  He  felt  that  the  hand  of  decay  was  upon  him, 
and  he  expressed  a  belief  that  he  should  never  return.  Like  the  friends  of 
Paul,  they  kissed  him,  "  Sorrowing  most  of  all  for  the  words  which  he  spake, 
that  they  should  see  his  face  no  more.  And  they  accompanied  him  to  the  ship."- 
Men,  women,  and  children,  parted  with  him  at  the  shore,  with  tears.  His  an- 
ticipations were  realized,  for  on  the  25th  of  August,  1828,  only  a  fortnight  after 
his  arrival  at  New  Haven,  he  departed  for  the  "happy  land,"  at  the  age  of 
thirty-four  years.  There  is  a  handsome  monument  to  his  memory  in  a  cemetery 
in  New  Haven. 


JOHN  CALDWELL  CALHOUN. 

BY  far  the  most  profound,  consistent,  and  popular  statesman  that  South  Caro- 
lina has  ever  produced,  was  John  C.  Calhoun,  whose  name  will  ever  bo 
associated  in  history  with  the  institution  of  Slavery  as  its  most  cordial  and  honest 
defender.  He  will  be  remembered,  too,  as  an  uncorrupt  patriot,  and  a  states- 
man above  reproach.  That  idol  of  the  Carolinians  was  the  son  of  Patrick  Calhoun, 
an  Irishman  of  great  respectability,  who  took  front  rank  among  the  patriots  in 
Western  Carolina  during  the  War  for  Independence.  John  was  born  in  Abbe- 
ville district,  South  Carolina,  on  the  18th  of  March,  1782.  His  mother  was  a 
Virginia  lady  of  great  worth,  and  to  her  care  the  moulding  of  the  young  mind 
and  heart  of  the  future  statesman  was  chiefly  intrusted.  Although  he  was  a 
great  reader,  from  childhood,  yet,  until  late  in  youthhood,  he  had  acquired  very 
little  education  from  systematic  instruction.  Under  the  charge  of  his  brother-in- 
law,  Dr.  Waddel,  of  Columbia  county,  Georgia,  he  was  prepared  for  college,  and 
entered  Yale,  as  a  student,  in  1802.  His  progress  there  was  exceedingly  rapid. 
His  genius  beamed  forth  daily,  more  and  more;  and,  in  1804,  he  was  graduated 
with  the  highest  honors  of  the  institution.  President  Dwight  admired  him  for 
his  many  manly  virtues ;  and  on  one  occasion  he  remarked,  "  That  boy,  Calhoun, 
has  talent  enough  to  be  President  of  the  United  States,  and  will  become  one 
yet,  I  confidently  predict." 

For  three  years  subsequent  to  his  leaving  college,  Calhoun  studied  law,  in 
Litchfield,  Connecticut,  and  then  entered  upon  its  practice  in  his  native  district. 
He  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  tha  legislature  of  South  Carolina,  the  following  year 
[1808],  and  after  serving  two  terms  there,  he  was  chosen  to  represent  his  district 
in  the  Federal  Congress.  At  that  time  a  war  spirit  was  kindling  throughout  the 
nation,  and  Mr.  Calhoun  entered  Congress  when  his  fine  abilities  were  most 
needed.  He  was  a  staunch  republican ;  and  during  his  career  of  six  years  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  he  was  an  eloquent  and  consistent  supporter  of  Pres- 
ident Madison's  administration.  Mr.  Monroe  so  highly  appreciated  his  abilities, 
that  when  he  took  the  presidential  chair,  in  1817,  he  called  Mr.  Calhoun  to  his 
cabinet  as  Secretary  of  War.  In  that  capacity  his  great  administrative  abilities, 
so  early  discovered  by  President  Dwight,  were  daily  manifested,  and  he  per- 
formed the  duties  of  his  office  with  signal  fidelity  and  energy,  during  the  wholo 
eight  years  of  Mr.  Monroe's  administration.  He  was  elected  Vice-President  of 

1.  See  sketch  of  Lott  Cary.  2.  Acts  xx.  CS. 


JOHN  CALDWELL  CALHOUN. 


327 


the  United  States,  in  1825,  and  held  that  position  more  than  six  years,  having 
been  reflected,  with  President  Jackson,  in  1828.  In  1831,  when  Robert  Y. 
Hayne  left  the  Senate  to  become  governor  of  South  Carolina,  Mr.  Calhoun  was 
chosen  his  successor,  and  resigned  the  vice-presidency.  At  the  end  of  the  term 
for  which  he  was  chosen,  he  retired  to  private  life,  and  sought  repose  in  the 
bosom  of  his  family.  In  1843,  he  was  called  to  the  cabinet  of  President  Tyler, 
as  Secretary  of  State  ;  and,  in  1845,  he  was  again  chosen  United  States  Senator, 
by  the  legislature  of  South  Carolina.  He  continued  in  that  exalted  position 
until  his  death,  which  occurred  at  Washington  city,  on  the  31st  of  March,  1850, 
at  the  age  of  sixty-eight  years. 

Few  men  have  exerted  a  more  powerful  and  controlling  sway  over  the  opinions 
of  vast  masses  of  men,  than  Mr.  Calhoun,  for  his  views  on  several  topics  coin- 
cided with  those  of  the  great  majority  of  the  Southern  people ;  and  he  was  known 
to  be  inflexibly  honest  and  true,  and  eminently  reliable.  No  man  of  his  faith 
ever  doubted  that  leader  any  more  than  his  creed.  As  a  statesman,  he  was  full 
of  forecast,  acute  in  judgment,  and  comprehensive  in  his  general  views.  He  was 
eminently  conservative  in  many  things,  and  by  precept  and  example,  recom- 
mended "  masterly  inactivity  "  as  preferable  to  mere  impulsive  and  effervescent 
movements.  When  intelligence  came,  in  1848,  that  Louis  Philippe  was  driven 
from  Paris  and  the  French  Republic  had  been  proclaimed,  it  was  proposed,  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  that  our  government  should  acknowledge  the  new 


328  HENRY   DEARBORN. 


order  of  things.  "  "Wait  until  it  becomes  a  Republic,"  were  the  words  of  cautious 
wisdom  uttered  by  Senator  Calhoun.  We  have  waited  seven  years,  and  France 
is  yet  [1855]  ruled  by  an  usurper.  Daniel  Webster  said  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  in  tho 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  "  We  shall  hereafter,  I  am  sure,  indulge  in  it  as  r, 
grateful  recollection,  that  we  have  lived  in  his  age,  that  we  have  been  his  con- 
temporaries, that  we  have  seen  him,  and  heard  him,  and  known  him." 


HENRY    DEARBORN. 

WHEN  the  government  of  the  United  States  declared  war  against  Great 
Britain,  in  1812,  the  chief  command  of  the  army  then  authorized  to  bo 
raised,  was  given  to  Henry  Dearborn,  a  meritorious  soldier  of  the  War  for  Inde- 
pendence. He  was  born  in  Hampton,  New  Hampshire,  in  March,  1751.  lie 
studied  the  science  of  medicine  with  Doctor  Jackson,  of  Portsmouth,  and  com- 
menced its  practice  there  in  1772.  As  the  storm-clouds  of  the  impending  Revo- 
lution gathered,  he  took  an  active  part  in  politics  on  the  side  of  the  patriots,  and 
gave  much  attention  to  military  affairs.  When,  on  the  20th  of  April,  1775.  in- 
telligence reached  Portsmouth  of  the  skirmishes  at  Lexington  and  Concord  tho 
preceding  day,  young  Dearborn  marched  in  haste  to  Cambridge,  at  the  head  of 
sixty  volunteers.  He  soon  returned  to  New  Hampshire,  was  elected  a  captain 
in  the  regiment  of  Colonel  Stark,  enlisted  his  company,  and  was  again  at  Cam- 
bridge on  the  15th  of  May.  In  the  memorable  battle  on  Breed's  Hill,  on  tho 
17th  of  June  following,  Captain  Dearborn  behaved  gallantly;  and  in  September 
ensuing,  he  accompanied  General  Arnold  in  his  perilous  march  across  the  wilder- 
ness from  the  Kennebec  to  the  St.  Lawrence.  Famine,  with  the  keenness  of  a 
wolfs  appetite,  fell  upon  them,  and  a  fine  dog  belonging  to  Captain  Dearborn, 
that  accompanied  them,  was  used  for  food.  Even  moose-skin  breeches  were 
boiled ;  the  extracted  mucilage  served  as  soup,  and  the  hide  was  roasted  and 
eaten.  Many  died  from  hunger  and  fatigue,  and  Captain  Dearborn  himself  was 
left  ill  of  a  fever  in  the  hut  of  a  farmer,  on  the  banks  of  the  Chaudiere,  without 
a  physician.  He  slowly  recovered,  joined  the  army  at  Quebec,  in  December, 
participated  in  the  siege  and  assault  of  that  city,  under  Montgomery,  and  was 
made  a  prisoner.  He  was  permitted  to  return  home  on  parole  the  following 
May.  His  exchange  was  not  effected  until  March,  1777,  when  he  was  appointed 
major  in  Scammell's  regiment ;  and  was  at  Ticonderoga,  in  May  following.  In 
the  eventful  conflicts  at  Saratoga,  in  the  ensuing  Autumn,  he  gallantly  partic- 
ipated, and  shared  in  the  honors  of  the  capture  of  Burgoyne.  General  Gates 
gave  him  special  notice  in  his  despatch  to  Congress.  He  was  promoted  to  lieu- 
tenant-colonel in  Cilley's  regiment,  and  in  that  capacity  he  participated  in  the 
gallant  charge  at  Monmouth,  after  Lee's  retreat,  that  broke  the  power  of  the 
British  force. 

Lieutenant-colonel  Dearborn  accompanied  General  Sullivan  in  his  expedition 
against  the  Senecas,  in  1779.  In  1780,  he  again  became  attached  to  Colonel  Scam- 
mell's regiment,  and  on  the  death  of  that  officer  during  the  siege  of  Yorktown, 
Dearborn  succeeded  to  his  rank  and  command.  After  that  event  he  was  on 
duty  at  the  frontier  post  of  Saratoga,  under  the  immediate  command  of  Lord 
Stirling,  and  there,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  his  military  services  in  the  Continental 
army  ended.  He  settled  upon  the  banks  of  the  Kennebec,  in  1784,  and  engaged 
in  agricultural  pursuits.  In  1789,  Washington  appointed  him  marshal  of  the 
District  of  Maine ;  and  twice  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  Congress  from  that 


ABIEL  HOLMES.  329 


territory.  Mr.  Jefferson  called  him  to  his  cabinet  as  Secretary  of  War.  in  ISO  1, 
and  he  discharged  the  duties  of  that  office  with  great  ability  and  fidelity,  during 
Jefferson's  entire  administration  of  eight  years.  On  retiring,  in  1809,  President 
Madison  gave  him  the  lucrative  office  of  collector  at  the  port  of  Boston.  In 
February,  1812,  when  war  with  Great  Britain  appeared  inevitable,  Colonel  Dear- 
born was  commissioned  senior  major-general  of  the  army ;  and  the  following 
Spring  he  was  in  chief  command  at  the  capture  of  York  (now  Toronto),  in  Can- 
ada, where  General  Pike  was  killed.  He  continued  in  command,  for  awhile 
longer,  when  the  President  recalled  him  on  the  ground  of  ill  health,  and  he 
assumed  command  of  the  military  district  of  New  York  city.  He  retired  to 
private  life,  in  1815,  where  he  remained  until  1822,  when  President  Monroe  ap- 
pointed him  minister  to  Portugal.  At  his  own  request  he  was  permitted  to  re- 
turn home,  after  an  absence  of  two  years,  and  resided  most  of  the  time  in  Boston, 
until  his  death.  That  event  occurred  at  the  house  of  his  son,  in  Roxbury,  Mas- 
sachusetts, on  the  6th  of  June,  ,1829,  at  the  age  of  seventy-eight  years. 


ABIEL    HOLMES. 

THE  faithful  annalist  is  a  nation's  benefactor ;  and  it  may  bo  truthfully  said  to 
all  such  chroniclers,  as  the  poet  said  to  the  historian  of  Rome — 

"  And  Rome  shall  owe 
For  her  memorial  to  your  learned  pen 
More  than  to  all  those  fading  monumert«T 
Built  with  the  riches  of  the  spoiled  world." 

In  this  category  of  benefactors,  Abiel  Holmes,  D.D.,  holds  a  conspicuous  place, 
and  Americans  should  cherish  his  memory  with  pride  and  deepest  affection.  His 
Annals  of  America,  in  two  volumes,  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  historical  pub- 
lications ever  issued  from  the  press,  as  a  work  of  reference.  And  as  an  Annalist 
he  is  best  known  to  the  world. 

Abiel  Holmes  was  born  at  Woodstock,  Connecticut,  in  December,  1763.  He 
was  graduated  at  Yale  College  at  the  age  of  twenty  years,  and  went  immediately 
to  South  Carolina  as  an  instructor  in  a  private  family.  He  had  received  religious 
impressions  at  an  early  age,  and  these  deepened  with  the  lapse  of  years.  The 
gospel  ministry  opened  to  his  mind  a  field  of  great  usefulness,  and  he  entered 
upon  it  as  a  pastor  of  a  church  at  Midway,  Georgia,  in  the  Autumn  of  1785. 
There  he  remained  until  the  Summer  of  1791,  when  he  visited  New  England, 
and  accepted  an  invitation  to  become  pastor  of  the  first  Congregational  Church 
at  Cambridge,  Massachusetts.  He  was  ever  studious,  and  Biography  and  History 
had  great  charms  for  him.  In  1798,  he  wrote  and  published  a  Life  of  President 
Stiles,  of  Yale  College;  and,  in  1805,  his  Annals  of  America  was  first  published. 
An  edition  was  printed  in  England,  in  1813;  and,  in  1829,  a  much-improved 
edition,  in  which  the  record  is  continued  until  1827,  was  published  at  Cambridge. 
"With  this  edition  of  Holmes'  Annals,  the  American  Register  from  ]826  to  1830 
inclusive,  and  the  American  Almanac  from  1830  to  the  present  time,  a  library 
has  an  unbroken  record  of  events  in  the  United  States  from  the  earliest  settle- 
ments. In  addition  to  his  works  just  mentioned,  Dr.  Holmes  published  about 
thirty  pamphlets,  consisting  chiefly  of  sermons  and  historical  disquisitions.  He 
died  at  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  on  the  4th  day  of  June,  1837,  at  the  age  of 
almost  seventy-four  years. 


330  PHILIP   SYNG  PHYSIC. 


PHILIP    SYNQ   PHYSIC. 

PHILIP  SYNG-  PHYSIC  has  been  appropriately  called  the  Washington— the 
Hero  and  Sage — of  the  medical  profession,  because,  always  cautious,  he 
was  nevertheless  ready  for  any  emergency,  and  his  great  mind  never  failed  in 
its  resources  amidst  the  most  complicated  difficulties.  That  eminent  physician 
was  born  in  Philadelphia,  on  the  7th  of  July,  1768.  His  father  had  been  keeper 
of  the  great  seal  of  the  colony  of  Pennsylvania ;  and,  prior  to  the  Revolution,  he 
had  charge  of  the  estates  of  the  Penn  family,  as  confidential  agent.  At  the  age 
of  eleven  years,  Philip  was  placed  under  the  charge  of  Robert  Proud,  principal 
of  aa  academy  that  belonged  to  the  Society  of  Friends,  and  in  due  time  entered 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  as  a  student.  He  was  graduated  in  1785,  and 
immediately  commenced  the  study  of  medicine  with  the  distinguished  Professor 
Kuhn.  After  attending  a  course  of  medical  lectures  at  the  university,  he  em- 
barked for  Europe,  in  the  Autumn  of  1788,  in  company  with  his  father,  who, 
through  influential  friends  in  England,  procured  the  admission  of  Philip  to  the 
friendship  and  private  instruction  of  the  eminent  Dr.  John  Hunter.  No  man 
ever  had  a  better  opportunity  for  acquiring  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
healing  art,  and  of  practical  surgery,  than  young  Physic,  and  ho  nobly  improved 
it  to  his  own  benefit  and  that  of  his  race.  His  talents  were  so  conspicuous,  that 
on  the  earnest  recommendation  of  Dr.  Hunter,  Physic  was  appointed  house  sur- 
geon to  St.  George's  Hospital,  in  1790,  to  serve  one  year.  At  the  close  of  the 
term  he  received  a  diploma  from  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  in  London,  and 
Dr.  Hunter  offered  him  a  professional  partnership.  The  young  man  had  resolved 
to  make  his  native  city  the  chief  theatre  of  his  career,  and  after  remaining  with 
Hunter  during  1791,  he  went  to  Edinburgh,  studied  and  observed  diligently 
there,  in  the  University  and  in  the  Royal  Infirmary,  obtained  the  degree  of 
M.D.,  in  May,  1792,  and  in  September,  returned  to  America. 

Thus  prepared,  Dr.  Physic  entered  upon  the  practice  of  his  profession,  in 
Philadelphia.  In  1793,  the  yellow  fever  tested  his  skill,  moral  courage,  and 
benevolence,  to  the  utmost,  and  all  appeared  eminently  conspicuous.  The  fol- 
lowing year  he  was  chosen  to  be  one  of  the  surgeons  of  the  Pennsylvania  Hos- 
pital; and,  when  the  yellow  fever  again  prevailed,  in  1798,  his  services  were  of 
the  greatest  importance.  In  1801,  he  was  appointed  surgeon  extraordinary  to 
the  Philadelphia  Almshouse  Infirmary.  The  following  year,  on  the  earnest  re- 
quest of  a  number  of  medical  students,  he  delivered  a  course  of  lectures  on  Sur- 
gery. They  were  exceedingly  popular,  and  students  came  from  all  parts  of  the 
country  to  enjoy  his  instructions.  In  1805,  a  professorship  of  surgery,  distinct 
from  anatomy,  was  instituted  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Dr.  Physic 
was  called  to  that  chair.  In  fact  it  was  created  for  him.  He  performed  the 
duties  of  that  station  in  a  highly  satisfactory  manner,  until  1819,  when  he  was 
transferred  to  the  chair  of  anatomy,  in  the  same  institution,  on  the  death  of  its 
incumbent  (his  nephew),  John  Syng  Dorsey.  Year  after  year  he  continued  his 
lectures  to  great  numbers  of  medical  students,  notwithstanding  his  extensive 
practice  and  college  duties  made  his  labors  very  great. 

In  1821,  Dr.  Physic  was  appointed  consulting  surgeon  to  the  Philadelphia 
Institution -for  the  Blind;  and,  in  1824,  he  was  elected  president  of  the  Phila- 
delphia Medical  Society,  a  station  which  he  filled  with  great  dignity  until  his 
death.  In  1825,  the  French  Royal  Academy  of  Medicine  made  him  an  honorary 
member  of  that  institution,  the  first  dignity  of  the  kind  ever  received  by  an 
American.  He  was  also  made  an  honorary  fellow  of  the  Royal  Medical  and 
Chirurgical  Society  of  London.  In  1831,  failing  health  caused  Dr.  Physic  to 
resign  his  professorship  in  the  University,  when  he  was  immediately  elected 


JOHN"  SEVIEK.  331 


Emeritus  Professor  of  Surgery  and  Anatomy,  in  that  institution.  His  physical 
system  gradually  gave  way  under  his  incessant  professional  toil,  and  on  the  1 5th 
of  December,  1837,  that  eminent  surgeon  expired  in  Philadelphia,  at  the  age  of 
sixty-nine  years.  The  immediate  cause  of  his  death  was  hydrothorax.  Besides 
his  lectures,  Dr.  Physic  wrote  but  little.  He  labored  intensely,  in  his  profession, 
and  left  authorship  to  others. 


JOHN    SEVIER. 

SOON  after  the  return  of  peace  when  the  War  for  Independence  had  ceased, 
the  hardy  mountaineers  of  the  extreme  western  portions  of  North  Caro- 
lina, established  a  separate  government,  and,  in  honor  of  Dr.  Franklin,  called 
the  new  State  FRAXKLAND.  A  brave  militia  officer  of  the  Revolution  was  chosen 
governor,  but  his  rule  and  the  new  State  were  of  short  duration.  That  officer 
was  John  Sevier,  a  descendant  of  an  ancient  French  farr.ily,  the  original  orthog- 
raphy of  which  was  Xavier.  He  was  born  on  the  banks  of  the  Shenandoah,  in 
Virginia,  about  the  year  1740.  lie  was  a  bold  and  fearless  youth,  and  was 
engaged  much  in  athletic  exercises  during  the  earlier  years  of  his  manhood.  In 
1769,  he  accompanied  an  exploring  party  to  East  Tennessee,  and  settled  on  the 
Ilolston  river,  with  his  father  and  brother.  There  he  assisted  in  erecting  Fort 
Watauga,  and  was  afterward  made  the  commander  of  the  little  garrison, 
with  the  commission  of  captain.  The  Cherokees  were  then  prowling  around, 
with  hostile  intentions,  British  emissaries  having  excited  them  against  the  col- 
onists. One  pleasant  morning  in  June,  1776,  the  gallant  captain  saw  a  young 
lady  running  with  the  speed  of  a  doe,  toward  the  fort,  pursued  by  a  party  of 
Cherokees  under  "  Old  Abraham,"  one  of  their  most  noted  chiefs.  With  a  single 
bound  she  leaped  the  palisades,  and  fell  into  the  arms  of  Captain  Sevier.  It  was 
a  lucky  leap  for  Catherine  Sherrill,  for  she  was  caught  by  a  husband,  unto  whom 
she  bore  ten  children. 

Captain  Sevier  was  with  Evan  Shelby  at  the  battle  of  Point  Pleasant,  in  1774. 
During  the  first  five  years  of  the  war  he  was  an  active  Whig  partisan  on  the 
mountain  frontiers  of  the  Carolinas ;  and,  in  1780,  when  Corn wallis  was  pene- 
trating toward  the  hills,  he  held  the  commission  of  colonel.  He  greatly  distin- 
guished himself  at  the  battle  on  King's  Mountain,  in  October  of  that  year,  and 
also  at  Musgrove's  Mills.  The  following  year  he  quieted  hostile  Indians  among 
the  mountains,  by  a  severe  chastisement.  At  the  close  of  the  war  he  was  corn- 
missioned  a  brigadier;  and  he  was  so  much  beloved  by  the  people,  that  on  the 
formation  of  the  State  of  FRANKLAND,  above  alluded  to,  he  was  elected  governor 
by  unanimous  acclamation.  He  was  so  often  engaged  in  conferences  with  the 
Indians,  that  they  gave  him  a  name  which  signified  treaty-maker.  When  Ten- 
nessee was  organized,  and  admitted  into  the  Union  as  an  independent  State, 
Sevier  was  elected  its  first  governor.  In  1811,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  Con- 
gress, and  was  reflected  in  1813.  He  was  a  firm  supporter  of  President  Madi- 
son's administration,  and  was  appointed  an  Indian  commissioner  for  his  State 
and  the  adjoining  territories.  While  engaged  in  the  duties  of  his  office  near  Fort 
Decatur,  on  the  east  side  of  the  Tallapoosa  river,  he  died,  on  the  24th  of  Septem- 
ber, 1815,  at  the  age  of  about  seventy-five  years.  There  he  was  buried  with 
the  honors  of  war,  under  the  direction  of  the  late  General  Gaines.  No  stone,  it 
is  said,  identifies  his  grave ;  but  in  a  cemetery  at  Nashville,  a  handsome  marble 
cenotaph  has  been  erected  to  his  memory,  by  "An  admirer  of  Patriotism  and 
Merit  unrequited." 


332 


ISABELLA   GRAHAM. 


ISABELLA    QRAHAM. 

EARTH  hath  its  angels,  bright  and  lovely.  They  often  walk  in  the  garden  of 
humanity  unobserved.  Their  foot-prints  are  pearly  with  Heaven's  choicest 
blessings ;  fragrant  flowers  spring  up  and  bloom  continually  in  their  presence, 
and  the  birds  of  paradise  warble  unceasingly  in  the  branches  beneath  which 
they  recline.  They  arc  born  of  true  religion  in  the  heart.  Their  creed  cornes 
down  from  heaven,  and  is  as  broad  as  humanity;  their  hope  is  a  golden  chain  of 
promises  suspended  from  the  throne  of  infinite  goodness ;  their  example  is  a 
preacher  of  righteousness  co- working  with  the  Great  Redeemer. 

Of  these  blessed  ones  of  earth,  was  Isabella  Graham,  a  native  of  Lanarkshire, 
Scotland,  where  she  was  bora  on  the  29th  of  July,  1742.  Her  maiden  name 
was  Marshall,  and  during  her  earlier  years  her  father  occupied  the  estate,  once 
the  residence  of  the  renowned  William  "Wallace.  Isabella  was  early  trained  to 
physical  activity,  and  was  blessed  with  a  superior  education,  which  afterward 
became  her  life-dependence.  Her  moral  and  religious  culture  kept  pace  with 
her  intellectual  improvement,  and  under  the  teaching  of  Dr.  Witherspoon  (after^ 
ward  president  of  the  college  at  Princeton,  New  Jersey),  she  became  a  Christian 
professor  at  the  age  of  seventeen  years. 

Miss  Marshall  was  married  to  Dr.  John  Graham,  an  army  surgeon,  in  1765, 
and  the  following  year  accompanied  him  to  Canada,  whither  he  was  ordered  to 
join  his  regiment.  She  was  a  resident  of  a  garrison  at  Fort  Niagara  for  several 
years,  and  just  before  the  American  Revolution  broke  out,  she  accompanied  her 
husband  to  the  Island  of  Antigua.  Then  the  furnace  of  affliction  was  prepared 
for  her.  First,  intelligence  came  that  her  dear  mother  was  buried.  Soon  after 
that  two  of  her  dear  friends  were  removed  by  death ;  and  in  the  Autumn  of 


ISABELLA  GRAHAM.  333 


1774,  her  excellent  husband  was  taken  from  her,  after  a  few  days'  illness,  leaving 
her  in  a  strange  land,  with  three  infant  daughters.  But  she  was  not  friendless. 
She  had  freely  cast  her  bread  of  benevolence  upon  the  waters,  and  it  returned  to 
her  by  corresponding  benevolence,  when  it  was  most  needed.1 

After  giving  birth  to  a  son,  Mrs.  Graham  returned  to  Scotland.  Her  aged 
father  had  become  impoverished,  and  was  added  to  the  dependants  upon  her 
efforts  for  a  livelihood.  She  opened  a  small  school,  and  lived  upon  coarse  and 
scanty  food,  made  sweet  by  the  thought  that  it  was  earned  for  those  she  loved. 
Old  acquaintances  among  the  rich  and  gay  passed  the  humble  widow  by,  but  old 
friends,  with  hearts  in  their  hands,  assisted  her  in  establishing  a  boarding-school 
in  Edinburgh.  God  prospered  her,  and  she  distributed  freely  of  her  little  abund- 
ance among  the  more  needy.  A  tenth  of  all  her  earnings  she  regularly  devoted 
to  charity ;  and  hour  after  hour,  when  the  duties  of  her  school  had  ceased,  that 
good  and  gentle  creature  would  walk  among  the  poor  and  destitute,  in  the  lanes 
and  alleys  of  the  Scottish  capital,  dispensing  physical  benefits  and  religious  con- 
solations. Thoroughly  purified  in  the  crucible  of  sorrow,  her  heart  was  ever  alive 
with  sympathy  for  suffering  humanity,  and  that  became  the  great  controlling 
emotion  that  shaped  her  labors.  She  often  lent  small  sums  of  money  to  young 
persons  about  entering  upon  business,  and  would  never  receive  interest,  for  she 
considered  the  luxury  of  doing  good  sufficient  usury.  She  encouraged  poor 
laboring  people  to  unite  in  creating  a  fund  for  mutual  'relief  in  case  of  sickness, 
by  a  small  deposit  each  week,  and  thus  she  founded  the  "Penny  Society,"  out 
of  which  grew  that  excellent  institution,  in  Edinburgh,  "  The  Society  for  the 
Relief  of  the  Destitute  Sick." 

At  the  solicitation  of  Dr.  "VVithcrspoon,  and  of  some  friends  in  New  York,  Mrs. 
Graham  came  to  America,  in  1785;  and  in  the  Autumn  of  that  year  opened  a 
school,  with  five  pupils,  in  our  commercial  metropolis.  Before  the  end  of  a 
month  the  number  of  her  pupils  had  increased  to  fifty,  and  for  thirteen  years  she 
continued  that  vocation  with  increasing  prosperity.  A  great  blessing  came  to 
her,  in  1795,  when  her  second  daughter  married  the  excellent  Divie  Bethune,  an 
enterprising  young  merchant  of  New  York,  who  became  an  earnest  co-worker  in 
the  cause  she  had  espoused.2  Sorrow  came  at  about  the  same  time,  for  her 
eldest  daughter  was  taten  away  by  death.  But  the  widow  was  not  diverted 
from  the  path  of  Christian  duty  by  prosperity  nor  adversity.  She  walked  daily 
among  the  poor,  like  a  sweet  angel,  dispensing  with  bountiful  hand  the  blessings 
she  had  received  from  above.  At  her  house,  in  1796,  a  number  of  ladies  formed 
that  noble  institution,  tke  Society  for  the  Relief  of  Poor  Widows  with  Children; 
and  two  years  afterward  she  gave  up  her  school,  went  to  reside  with  her  daugh- 
ters, and  dedicated  her  time  to  the  services  of  an  abounding  charity.  We  can- 
not follow  her  in  all  her  ministrations,  public  and  private,  for  they  were  as  man- 
ifold as  the  hours  of  the  day.  She  was  one  of  the  promoters  of  the  Orphan 
Asylum  and  the  Magdalene  Society.  She  had  printed  and  distributed  several 
tracts,  before  any  society  for  the  purpose  was  formed,  which  were  calculated  to 
excite  the  public  sympathy  for  the  destitute  and  suffering.  She  was  active  in 
giving  popularity  to  Lancasterian  schools  for  the  poor,  and  the  Sabbath-school 
was  her  special  delight.  Every  where,  by  night  and  by  day,  in  the  city  of  her 

1.  Her  husband's  mate,  in  the  regiment,  was  an  excellent  young  man,  and  Mrs.  Graham  shared  so 
largely  in  the  doctor's  respect  and  affection  for  him,  that,  slender  as  were  her  own  means,  she  presented 
the  young  surgeon  with  her  husband's  medical  library  and  sword.     The  young  man  was  grateful,  and 
when  his  circumstances  were  improved,  and  Mrs.  Graham's  were  made  worse  by  losses,  he  steadily  re- 
mitted small  sums  to  her,  for  several  years.    At  the  time  when  she  became  easier  in  pecuniary  matters,  his 
letters  were  suspended,  and  she  never  heard  any  thing  more  of  him. 

2.  That  eminent  philanthropist  (father  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Bethune,  now  [1855]  of  Brooklyn),  was  also  a 
native  of  Scotland.     Before  any  tract  society  was  formed  in  this  country,  he  printed  10,000  tracts  at  his 
own  expense,  and  distributed  them  with  his  own  hand.     He  also  imported  many  Bibles  for  distribution, 
supported  one  or  more  Sunday-schools,  and  always  devoted  a  tenth  of  his  gains  to  charitable  and  relig- 
ious purposes.    He  died  in  1824.    His  wife,  Joanna,  yet  [1855J  lives  in  the  city  of  New  York. 


HENRY   WHEATON. 


adoption,  that  noble  Sister  of  Charity  might  be  met,  dispensing  her  blessings, 
and  rewarded  by  the  benedictions  of  the  aided.1  Her  last  public  labor  was  in 
forming  a  society  for  the  promotion  of  industry  among  the  poor.  That  was  in 
the  Spring  of  1814,  when  the  infirmities  of  health  and  age  had  shortened  her 
journeys  of  love.  On  the  27th  of  July  following,  that  faithful  servant  of  the 
great  Pattern  of  benevolence  went  home  to  receive  her  final  reward,  at  the  age 
of  seventy-two  years. 


HENRY    WHEATON. 

T^ITE  most  eminent  American  writer  on  International  Law  that  has  yet  appeared, 
_L  was  Henry  Wheaton,  a  native  of  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  where  he  was 
born  in  November,  1785.  He  entered  Brown  University  at  the  age  of  thirteen 
years,  and  was  graduated  there  in  1802.  The  law  was  his  chosen  profession, 
and  he  commenced  its  study  under  the  direction  of  Nathaniel  Seaute.  After  two 
years'  close  application,  ho  went  to  France,  became  a  welcome  guest  in  tho 
family  of  General  Armstrong  (then  United  States  minister  there),  resided  in 
Paris  eighteen  months  in  the  earnest  study  of  the  French  language,  and  then 
went  to  London  and  made  himself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  constitutional 
and  international  jurisprudence  of  Europe.  On  his  return  to  Rhode  Island  he 
was  admitted  to  the  bar.  In  1812,  he  made  his  residence  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  where  he  took  a  high  position  as  a  lawyer.  The  same  year  he  assumed 
the  editorial  control  of  the  National  Advocate,  and  its  columns  abounded  with 
able  disquisitions  on  International  Law,  from  his  pen.  The  subject  was  of  special 
current  interest,  for  unsettled  questions  of  that  nature  were  some  of  the  imme- 
diate causes  of  the  war  then  in  progress  between  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain.  Mr.  "Wheaton  was  also  appointed  a  judge  of  the  Marine  Court,  in  tho 
city  of  New  York,  the  same  year;  and,  in  1815,  he  relinquished  his  connection 
with  the  National  Advocate.  In  May  of  that  year  he  published  his  Digest  relative 
to  Marine  Captures,  which  attracted  much  attention.  The  same  year  he  was 
appointed  reporter  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  and  performed 
the  duties  of  that  important  station  with  signal  ability  until  1827,  when  he  was 
appointed  Charge  d'Affaires  to  Denmark,  by  President  Adams.  His  reports 
were  published  in  twelve  volumes,  and  form  an  invaluable  library  of  legal  de- 
cisions. He  was  engaged  in  public  life  but  once  during  his  long  connection  with 
the  Supreme  Court.  That  service  was  performed  in  1821,  as  a  member  of  the 
convention  that  revised  the  Constitution  of  the  State  of  New  York. 

Mr.  "Wheaton  was  the  first  regular  minister  sent  to  Denmark  by  the  United 
States.  There  he  employed  his  leisure  time  in  making  diligent  researches  into 
Scandinavian  literature ;  and  lie  published  the  result  of  his  investigations  in  a 
volume  entitled  History  of  the  Northmen.  No  diplomatic  duty  was  neglected,  by 
these  researches,  and  his  mission  was  performed  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  his 
government.  In  1830,  he  visited  Paris,  and  was  highly  esteemed  in  diplomatic 
circles  there,  as  well  as  in  London,  the  following  year.  In  1836,  President 
Jackson  transferred  Mr.  "Wheaton  from  Copenhagen  to  Berlin,  and  a  few  months 
afterward  he  was  raised  to  the  rank  of  minister  plenipotentiary  at  the  court  of 

1.  On  one  occasion,  she  was  absent  for  some  lime  on  a  visit  to  Boston,  when,  to  the  surprise  of  Mrs. 
Bethune,  a  great  many  people  called  to  inquire  about  her  mother.  She  asked  the  reason  of  their  nu- 
merous inquiries,  and  was  told  that  they  lived  in  the  suburbs  of  the  city,  where  she  visited  and  relieved 
the  sick,  and  comforted  the  poor.  "  We  had  missed  her  so  long,"  one  of  them  said,  "  thnt  we  were  afraid 
she  was  sick.  When  she  walks  in  our  streets,"  she  continued,  "  it  was  customary  with  us  to  go  to  the 
door  and  bless  her  as  she  passed." 


JAMES   KENT.  335 


Prussia.  There  his  services  were  of  the  greatest  importance,  and  he  stood,  con- 
fessedly, at  the  head  of  American  diplomacy  in  Europe.  To  him  other  American 
legations  looked  for  counsel,  and  the  various  sovereigns  of  Europe  held  him  in 
the  highest  esteem.  In  1840,  Mr.  Wheatori  made  a  treaty  with  Hanover;  and 
the  same  year  he  attended  the  conference  of  representatives  of  twenty-seven 
German  States,  and  there  advanced  the  commercial  interests  of  his  country. 

Mr.  "Wheaton  is  known  as  one  of  the  best  writers  on  the  law  of  nations,  and 
his  works,  on  that  topic,  are  held  in  the  same  estimation,  in  the  cabinets  of  Europe, 
as  were  those  of  Grotius  and  Vattel  before  his  day.  He  wrote  a  Life  of  William 
Pinkney ;  and  in  addition  to  his  voluminous  despatches  on  all  sorts  of  subjects, 
he  delivered  many  discourses,  some  of  which  have  been  published  in  pamphlet 
form.  That  skilful  diplomatist,  ripe  scholar,  accomplished  author,  and  thorough 
gentleman,  died  at  Roxbury,  Massachusetts,  on  the  llth  of  March,  1848,  at  the 
age  of  sirty-three  years. 


JAMES    KENT. 

"  I'rc  scanned  the  actions  of  his  daily  life 
With  nil  the  industrious  malice  of  a  foe  ; 
And  nothing  meets  mine  eyes  but  deeds  of  honor." 

THESE  words  of  Hannah  More  may  justly  be  applied  to  the  character  of  that 
JL  brilliant  light  of  the  American  judiciary,  Chancellor  Kent,  for  no  jurist  over 
laid  aside  a  more  spotless  ermine  than  he.  lie  was  born  in  the  Fredericksburg 
precinct  of  Dutchess  county  (now  Putnam  county),  New  York,  on  the  31st  of 
July,  1763.  At  the  age  of  live  years  he  went  to  live  with  his  maternal  grand- 
father, at  Norwalk,  Connecticut,  and  remained  there,  engaged  in  preparatory 
studies,  until  1777,  when  he  entered  Yale  College,  as  a  student.  The  war  of 
the  Revolution  was  then  developing  its  worst  features,  for  British,  Hessians,  and 
Tories  were  desolating  various  districts,  by  fire  and  plunder.  For  a  time  the 
students  of  the  college  were  scattered ;  yet,  with  all  the  disadvantages  produced 
by  these  interruptions,  young  Kent  was  graduated  with  distinguished  honor,  in 
1781.  The  perusal  of  Blackstone1  s  Commentaries,  soon  after  he  entered  college, 
gave  him  a  taste  for  law,  and,  on  leaving  Yale,  he  commenced  its  study  with 
Egbert  Benson,  then  attorney-general  of  the  State  of  New  York. 

Mr.  Kent  was  admitted  to  practice,  in  1785,  as  attorney  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  his  native  State;  and,  in  1787,  he  was  admitted  as  counsellor  of  the  same 
court.  He  was  then  married  and  settled  at  Poughkeepsie,  on  the  Hudson.  He 
was  exceedingly  studious,  and  always  methodical.'  While  his  profession  was 
his  chief  care,  he  did  not  escape  the  influence  of  the  ambitious  desire  of  a  pol- 
itician ;  and  joining  with  Hamilton  and  other  leading  Federalists  in  his  State,  ho 
soon  became  identified  with  the  public  measures  of  the  day.  In  1790,  and  again 
in  1792,  he  represented  the  Poughkeepsie  district  in  the  State  legislature.  Hav- 
ing failed  as  a  candidate  for  the  same  office,  in  1793,  he  removed  to  the  city  of 
New  York,  and  became  Professor  of  Law  in  Columbia  College.  In  1796,  he  was 
appointed  master  in  Chancery,  and  the  following  year  he  was  made  recorder  of 
the  city  of  New  York.  At  about  this  time  the  Faculty  of  Columbia  College 
evinced  their  appreciation  of  his  great  legal  learning,  by  conferring  upon  him 
the  honorary  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws.  Those  of  Harvard  and  Dartmouth  after- 

1.  At  that  time  he  commenced  a  system  of  self-training:,  of  great  value.  He  divided  the  day  into  six 
portions.  From  dawn  until  eight  o'clock,  he  devoted  two  hours  to  Latin  ;  then  two  to  (Jreek,  and  the 
remainder  of  the  time  before  dinner  to  law.  The  afternoon  was  given  to  French  and  English  authors, 
and  the  evening  to  friendship  and  recreation,  in  which  he  took  special  delight. 


386 


JAMES    KENT. 


ward  imitated  their  example.  He  was  very  highly  esteemed  by  Governor  Jay; 
and  in  1797,  that  chief  magistrate  of  the  State  of  New  York  appointed  Mr.  Kent 
associate  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Three  years  afterward,  he  and  Judge 
Eadcliflfe  were  appointed  to  revise  the  legal  code  of  the  State,  for  which  they 
received  the  highest  encomiums  of  the  best  jurists  in  the  country.  Step  by  step 
Justice  Kent  went  up  the  ladder  of  professional  honor  and  distinction.  In  1804, 
he  was  appointed  chief  justice  of  the  State,  and  he  filled  that  important  office 
with  great  dignity  and  ability  until  February,  1814,  when  he  accepted  the  office 
of  chancellor.  In  that  exalted  station  he  labored  on  with  fidelity,  until  1823, 
when  he  had  reached  the  age  of  sixty  years,  and  was  ineligible  for  service  there- 
in, according  to  the  unwise  provisions  of  the  Constitution  of  1821.  He  finished 
his  labors  as  chancellor,  by  hearing  and  deciding  every  case  that  had  been 
brought  before  him ;  and  he  left  the  office  bearing  the  most  sincere  regrets  of 
every  member  of  his  profession,  and  of  the  people  at  large.  Soon  after  retiring 
from  public  life,  he  was  again  elected  Law  Professor  in  Columbia  College.  He 
revised  his  former  lectures,  added  new  ones  to  them,  and  then  published  the 
whole  in  four  volumes,  with  the  title  of  Commentaries  on  American  Law.  That 
great  work  is  a  text-book,  and  has  given  Chancellor  Kent  the  palm,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  best  judges  in  this  country  and  in  Europe,  as  one  of  the  first  legal 
writers  of  his  time. 

Chancellor  Kent  possessed  all  those  public  and  private  virtues  which  constitute 
a  true  MAN.     Industrious,  temperate,  social  and  religious,  he  was  blessed  with 


WILLIAM  DUNLAP.  387 


sound  health,  warm  friends,  devoted  family  affection,  and  an  unclouded  faith  in 
Divine  promises.  He  retained  his  robust  health  and  activity  until  within  a  few 
weeks  of  his  death,1  which  occurred  at  his  residence  on  Union  Square,  New 
York,  on  the  12tli  of  December,  1847,  when  at  the  age  of  eighty-four  years. 


WILLIAM    DUNLAP. 

AMONG-  the  privileged  few  who  had  the  honor  of  painting  tho  portrait  of 
"Washington,  from  life,  was  William  Dunlap,  who  is  equally  distinguished 
as  artist  and  author.  He  was  born  at  Perth  Amboy,  New  Jersey,  on  the  19th 
of  February,  1766,  and  at  the  house  of  a  kind  neighbor,  his  taste  for  pictures  and 
reading  was  early  developed  by  familiarity  there  with  paintings  and  books.  Tho 
storm  of  the  Revolution  produced  great  confusion  in  New  Jersey,  and  young 
Dunlap's  education  was  almost  utterly  neglected,  until  his  father  removed  to  the 
city  of  New  York,  in  1777,  which  was  then  in  possession  of  the  British.  There, 
while  at  play,  William  lost  an  eye,  by  accident.  He  had  become  very  expert  in 
copying  prints,  in  India  ink,  and  this  accident  perilled  all  his  future  career  as  a 
painter,  of  which  he  now  dreamed  continually.  The  difficulty  was  soon  over- 
come by  habit,  and  he  used  his  pencil  almost  incessantly,  with  occasionally  a 
word  of  instruction  from  an  artist.  He  commenced  portrait-painting  at  the  age 
of  seventeen  years,  and  at  Rocky  Hill,  in  New  Jersey,  he  was  allowed  to  paint 
the  portrait  of  Washington.2 

In  1784,  young  Dunlap  went  to  England,  and  became  a  pupil  of  the  great 
Benjamin  West.  His  progress  was  slow,  for  ho  spent  much  of  his  time  in  the 
enjoyments  of  the  amusements  of  London.  After  an  absence  of  three  years,  ho 
returned  to  New  York,  commenced  portrait-painting,  but  being  an  indifferent 
artist,  he  found  very  little  employment.  Discouraged  by  his  ill  success,  he  aban- 
doned the  art,  "took  refuge,"  he  says,  "in  literature,"  and  afterward  joined  his 
father  in  mercantile  business.  He  married  a  sister  of  the  wife  of  Dr.  D  wight,  of 
Yale  College,  and  he  was  much  benefited  by  his  connection  with  the  family  of 
one  who  proved  a  most  excellent  companion.  That  connection  turned  him  from 
the  paths  that  led  to  profligacy  and  ruin.  He  continued  to  be  a  thrifty  merchant 
until  1805,  when  he  unfortunately  became  the  lessee  of  the  New  York  theatre, 
and  by  losses  was  made  a  bankrupt.  He  immediately  returned  to  portrait- 
painting  for  a  livelihood,  first  in  Albany,  and  then  in  Boston,  but  with  his  former 
ill  success.  Half-despairing,  he  again  laid  aside  his  pallette,  and  became  general 
superintendent  and  occasional  manager  of  the  New  York  theatre.  He  continued 
in  that  business  until  1812,  when  he  again  returned  to  his  art.  It  failed  to  give 
him  bread.  He  employed  his  pen  in  writing  the  Memoirs  of  George  Frederick 
Cooke,  the  celebrated  English  actor,  for  tho  press;  and  he  became  editor  of  a 
magazine  called  The  Recorder.  In  1814,  he  was  appointed  paymaster-general 
of  the  militia  of  the  State  of  New  York,  in  the  service  of  the  United  States. 
This  employment  took  him  from  his  pencil  and  pen,  and  continued  until  1816. 
Then,  at  the  age  of  fifty-one  years,  he  first  became  permanently  a  painter,  and 
his  true  artist-life  began.  He  went  from  place  to  place  in  the  United  States  and 
Canada,  painting  portraits  with  considerable  success.  He  also  turned  his  atten- 
tion to  the  higher  walks  of  art,  and  produced,  in  succession,  three  large  pictures 

1.  The  writer  saw  him  often,  during  the  Rummer  preceding  his  death,  step  from  the  city  railway  cars 
with  the  firmness  and  agility  of  a  man  of  fifty. 

2.  It  was  at  Rocky  Hill,  a  little  while  before  the  disbanding  of  the  Continental  forces,  in  the  Autumn 
of  1783,  that  Washington  issued  his  Farewell  Address  to  the  Army.    Congress  was  then  in  session  at 
Princeton,  a  few  miles  distant. 

15 


338  JACOB  BROWN. 


—  Christ  Rejected,  Death  on  the  Pale  Horse,1  and  Calvary.  The  exhibition  of 
these  in  various  parts  of  the  Union,  contributed  materially  to  the  support  of  his 
family,  for  many  years.  Ho  painted  other  and  smaller  pieces,  some  of  which, 
and  especially  The  Historic  Muse,  were  productions  of  great  excellence. 

In  1830,  Mr.  Dunlap  commenced  lecturing  on  Fine  Art  topics,  and  attracted 
much  attention;  and,  in  1832,  he  published  a  History  of  the  American  Theatre. 
It  was  very  favorably  received,  and  was  followed  by  his  history  of  the  Arts  of 
Design  in  the  United  States.  In  the  meanwhile  [February,  1833],  he  received  a 
complimentary  benefit  at  the  Park  theatre,  New  York,  which  gave  him  over 
two  thousand  five  hundred  dollars.  In  1839,  he  published  the  first  volume  of  a 
History  of  the  State  of  New  York.  The  second  volume  was  unfinished  at  the 
time  of  his  death.  Not  long  before  that  occurrence,  his  friends  got  up  an  ex- 
hibition of  paintings  for  his  benefit,  and  the  last  days  of  his  life  were  made  happy 
by  plenty.  He  died  in  New  York  city,  on  the  28th  of  September,  1839,  in  the 
seventy-fourth  year  of  his  age.  Mr.  Dunlap  was  tho  author  of  several  dramas ; 
also  a  biography  of  Charles  Brockden  Brown. 


JACOB    BROWN. 

GREAT  events  as  often  produce  eminent  men  as  eminent  men  produce  great 
events.  The  heavings  of  the  earthquake  cast  up  lofty  hills ;  so  do  the 
political  and  social  convulsions  of  nations  make  dwarfs  in  quietude  giants  amid 
commotions.  The  war  of  the  Revolution  called  a  vast  amount  of  latent  genius 
into  action,  and  great  statesmen  and  warriors  appeared,  where  even  the  germs 
were  not  suspected.  The  second  "War  for  Independence,  commenced  in  1812, 
had  a  like  effect,  and  statesmen  and  military  leaders  came  from  the  work-shop 
and  the  furrow.  Of  the  latter  was  Jacob  Brown,  a  native  of  Bucks  county, 
Pennsylvania,  and  the  son  of  Quaker  parents.  He  was  born  on  the  9th  of  May, 
1775.  He  was  well  educated.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  years,  Jacob's  father  lost 
his  property,  and  the  well-trained  youth  at  once  resolved  to  earn  his  own  living. 
From  eighteen  to  twenty-one  years  of  age  he  taught  a  school  at  Crosswicks,  in 
New  Jersey,  and  at  the  same  time  he  studied  with  great  assiduity.  Then,  for 
about  two  years,  he  was  employed  as  a  surveyor  in  the  vicinity  of  Cincinnati ; 
and,  in  1798,  he  was  teaching  school  in  the  city  of  New  York.  There  he  com- 
menced the  study  of  law,  but  finding  it  not  congenial  to  his  taste,  he  abandoned 
it,  purchased  some  wild  land  in  the  present  Jefferson  county,  near  the  foot  of 
Lake  Ontario,  and  settled  upon  it,  in  1799.  He  pursued  the  business  of  a  farmer 
with  skill  and  industry;  and,  in  1809,  he  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  a 
regiment  of  militia.  The  governor  of  New  York  commissioned  him  a  brigadier, 
in  1811 ;  and  when,  the  following  year,  war  with  Great  Britain  commenced,  he 
was  intrusted  with  the  command  of  the  first  detachment  of  New  York  militia, 
which  was  called  into  the  service  of  the  United  States,  and  charged  with  tho 
defence  of  the  frontier,  from  Oswego  to  Lake  St.  Francis,  a  distance  of  almost 
two  hundred  miles.  In  October  of  that  year,  he  gallantly  defended  Ogdensburg, 
with  only  about  four  hundred  men,  against  eight  hundred  Britons.  At  the  ex- 
piration of  his  term,  the  government  offered  him  the  commission  of  colonel  in  tho 
regular  army,  but  he  declined  it.  In  the  Spring  of  1813,  he  drove  the  enemy 
from  Sackett's  Harbor.  In  his  operations  there  he  displayed  so  much  judgment 
and  skill,  that  Congress  gave  him  the  commission  of  a  brigadier-general  in  the 

1.  This  composition  he  made  from  a  printed  description  of  West's  great  picture  on  the  same  subject. 


GEOKGE  CLINTON.  339 


Federal  army.  In  the  Autumn  of  that  year  he  was  active  and  efficient  on  the 
banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence ;  and  after  the  retreat  of  the  American  troops  from 
Canada,  in  November,  the  illness  of  General  Wilkinson  made  the  chief  command 
devolve  upon  General  Brown.  Toward  the  close  of  January,  1814,  he  was  pro- 
moted to  major-general,  and  he  was  assiduous  during  the  few  weeks  preceding 
the  opening  of  the  campaign  for  that  year,  in  disciplining  the  troops  and  giving 
them  encouragement.  He  was  ordered  to  the  command  on  the  Niagara  frontier, 
in  the  Spring  of  1814,  and  during  the  succeeding  Summer  and  Autumn  he  won 
imperishable  honors  for  himself  and  country.  For  his  gallantry  and  good  con- 
duct in  the  successive  battles  of  Chippewa,  Niagara  Falls,  and  Fort  Erie,  he  re- 
ceived the  thanks  of  Congress  and  a  gold  commemorative  medal,  and  the  plaudits 
of  the  nation.  He  was  twice  severely  wounded  in  the  battle  at  Niagara  Falls, 
but  he  was  in  service  at  Fort  Erie,  a  few  weeks  later. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  General  Brown  was  retained  in  the  army,  and  was 
appointed  to  the  command  of  the  northern  division.  In  1821,  he  was  appointed 
general-in-chief  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  and  held  that  office  until  his 
death,  which  occurred  at  his  head-quarters,  in  Washington  city,  on  the  24th  of 
February,  1828,  at  the  age  of  fifty-three  years.  His  widow  now  [1855]  resides 
at  Brownsville,  the  place  of  their  early  settlement. 


QEORGE     CLINTON. 

ENERGY,  decision,  courage,  and  purest  patriotism,  were  the  prominent  features 
in  the  character  of  George  Clinton,  the  first  republican  governor  of  New 
York,  and  afterward  Vice-President  of  the  United  States.  He  was  the  youngest 
son  of  Colonel  Charles  Clinton,  and  was  born  in  that  portion  of  old  Ulster  county 
now  called  Orange,  on  the  26th  of  July,  1739.  His  education  was  intrusted  to 
a  private  tutor,  and  at  an  early  age  his  adventurous  spirit  yearned  for  the  sea. 
He  finally  left  his  father's  house  clandestinely,  and  sailed  in  a  privateer.  On 
his  return,  he  entered  the  military  company  of  his  brother  James,1  as  lieutenant, 
and  accompanied  him  in  Bradstreet's  expedition  against  Fort  Frontenac,  at  the 
foot  of  Lake  Ontario,  in  1758.  At  the  close  of  the  French  and  Indian  war,  he 
studied  law  under  Chief  Justice  Smith,  and  rose  to  distinction  in  that  profession. 
The  troubled  sea  of  politics  was  consonant  with  his  nature,  and  he  embarked  upon 
it  with  great  zeal.  He  was  a  zealous  Whig,  and  was  a  member  of  the  Colonial 
Assembly  of  New  York,  in  the  Spring  of  1775.  In  May  of  that  year  he  took  a 
seat  in  the  Continental  Congress,  where  he  remained  until  the  following  Sum- 
mer, and  voted  for  the  Declaration  of  Independence  on  the  4th  of  July.  Having 
been  appointed  brigadier-general  of  the  militia  of  New  York,  his  new  duties 
called  him  away  from  Congress  before  that  instrument  was  signed  by  the  mem- 
bers, and  thus  he  was  deprived  of  the  immortal  honor  of  an  arch-rebel. 

In  March,  1777,  General  Clinton  was  commissioned  a  brigadier-general,  by 
Congress,  and  a  month  afterward  he  was  chosen  both  governor  and  lieutenant- 
governor  of  the  State  of  New  York,  under  its  republican  constitution.  He  ac- 
cepted the  former  office,  and  the  latter  was  filled  by  Mr.  Van  Cortlandt.  Gov- 
ernor Clinton  exercised  the  duties  of  chief  magistrate  for  six  consecutive  terms, 

1.  James  was  born  on  the  9th  of  August,  1736.  After  the  French  and  Indian  war,  he  commanded  four 
companies  of  provincial  troops,  in  his  native  county,  employed  to  bar  the  inroads  of  Indians.  He  ac- 
companied Montgomery  to  Quebec,  in  1775,  and  was  an  active  officer,  with  the  rank  of  brigadier,  during 
a  great  portion  of  the  Revolution.  He  returned  to  his  estate  near  Newburgh,  Orange  county,  New  York, 
after  the  war,  and  there  he  died,  on  the  22d  of  December,  1812,  at  the  age  of  seventy -five  years.  He  was 
the  father  of  Dewitt  Clinton,  the  eminent  governor  of  New  York. 


340  WILLIAM   BAINBRIDGE. 

or  eighteen  years,  when,  in  1795,  he  was  succeeded  by  John  Jay.  Acting  in 
his  civil  and  military  capacity  at  the  same  time,  the  energetic  governor  and  gen- 
eral performed  the  most  essential  service  during  the  whole  war.  He  was  in 
command  of  Fort  Montgomery,  in  the  Hudson  Highlands,  when  it  was  captured, 
with  Fort  Clinton,  in  the  Autumn  of  1777  ;  and  he  did  more  than  any  other  man 
not  in  service  with  the  army,  in  preventing  a  communication  between  the  British 
in  Canada  and  the  city  of  New  York.  In  1788.  he  presided  over  the  convention 
held  at  Poughkeepsie  to  consider  the  Federal  Constitution.  After  retiring  from 
office,  in  1795,  he  remained  in  private  life  about  five  years,  when  he  was  again 
chosen  governor  of  his  State.  He  was  succeeded  by  Morgan  Lewis,  in  1804,  and 
the  same  year  he  was  elevated  to  the  station  of  Yice-President  of  the  United 
States.  He  was  reflected,  with  Mr.  Madison,  in  1808,  and  was  acting  in  dis- 
charge of  the  duties  of  that  office  at  the  time  of  his  death.  That  event  occurred 
at  Washington  city,  on  the  20th  of  April,  1812,  when  in  the  seventy-third  year 
of  his  age. 


WILLIAM    BAINBRIDQE. 

THE  first  man  who  unfurled  the  American  flag  in  the  harbor  of  Constantinople, 
was  Captain  William  Bainbridge,  who  was  then  in  the  unwilling  service  of 
the  haughty  Dey  of  Algiers,  as  bearer  of  that  barbarian's  ambassador  to  the 
court  of  the  Turkish  Sultan.  That  sovereign  regarded  the  event  as  a  happy 
omen  of  peace  and  good- will  between  his  throne  and  the  government  of  that  far- 
off  country  (ol  which,  perhaps,  he  had  never  heard),  for  there  seemed  an  affinity 
between  his  own  crescent  flag  and  the  star-spangled  banner  of  the  new  empire  in 
the  West. 

William  Bainbridge  was  born  at  Princeton,  New  Jersey,  on  the  7th  of  May, 
1774,  and  at  the  age  of  fifteen  years  went  to  sea  as  a  common  sailor.  Three 
years  afterward  he  was  promoted  to  mate  of  a  ship  engaged  in  the  Dutch  trade, 
and  at  the  age  of  nineteen  he  was  its  captain.  He  became  very  popular  in  the 
merchant  service ;  and  when  an  anticipated  war  with  France  caused  the  organ- 
ization of  an  American  navy,  Captain  Bainbridge  was  offered  the  commission  of 
a  lieutenant  and  the  position  of  a  commander.  His  first  cruise  was  in  the 
schooner  Retaliation,  which  was  captured  by  two  French  vessels  and  taken  to 
Guadaloupe.  The  governor  of  the  island,  desiring  to  remain  neutral,  offered 
Captain  Bainbridge  his  liberty  and  his  schooner,  if  ho  would  promise  to  return 
to  the  United  States  without  molesting  any  French  vessel  that  might  fall  in  his 
way.  Bainbridge  peremptorily  refused  to  make  any  stipulation  concerning  his 
own  conduct,  yet  the  governor  gladly  allowed  him  to  depart.  On  returning 
home,  his  conduct  was  approved,  and  he  was  promoted  to  Master  and  Com- 
mander. 

In  1799,  Captain  Bainbridge  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  a  small  vessel 
to  cruise  off  Cuba.  He  behaved  so  well  that  ho  was  promoted  to  post  captain, 
the  following  year.  He  soon  afterward  took  command  of  the  frigate  Washing- 
ton, and  was  ordered  to  proceed  to  Algiers  with  the  annual  tribute  which  the 
United  States  had  agreed  to  pay  that  power.  The  Dey  compelled  him  to  carry 
an  Algerine  ambassador  to  the  Sultan,  and  in  the  harbor  of  Constantinople  Bain- 
bridge received  honors  awarded  only  to  the  Lord  High  Admiral  of  the  Turkish 
navy.  On  his  return  to  Algiers,  he  was  instrumental  in  saving  the  French 
residents  there,  for  the  Dey  had  declared  war  with  France,  and  would  have  im- 
prisoned or  enslaved  the  few  French  people  in  his  dominions.  For  this  generous 


WILLIAM   BAINBKIDGE. 


341 


act,  Napoleon,  then  First  Consul,  thanked  Captain  Bainbridge,  and  his  own 
government  highly  approved  the  act.  In  June,  1801,  he  was  appointed  to  the 
command  of  the  Essex  frigate,  and  proceeded  to  the  Mediterranean,  to  protect 
American  commerce  there  against  the  piratical  Tripolitans.  He  returned  the 
following  year;  and  in  July,  1803,  he  sailed  in  the  frigate  Philadelphia,  to  join 
the  squadron  of  Commodore  Preble,  in  the  Mediterranean.  He  captured  a  hos- 
tile Moorish  vessel,  and  at  once  cooled  the  war  spirit  of  the  Emperor  of  Morocco. 
Under  the  directions  of  Preble,  Captain  Bainbridge  proceeded  to  blockade  the 
harbor  of  Tripoli,  where  the  Philadelphia,  on  the  morning  of  the  last  day  of  Octo- 
ber, ran  upon  a  reef  of  rocks,  and  was  captured  by  the  gun-boats  of  the  Tripol- 
itans.1 Bainbridge  and  his  crew  were  made  captives,  and  suffered  imprison- 
ment and  slavery  until  1805,  when  they  were  liberated,  by  treaty.  From  that 
time  until  the  commencement  of  war,  in  1812,  Captain  Bainbridge  was  employed 


1.  See  sketch  of  Decatur. 


342  ISAAC  CHAUNCEY. 


alternately  in  the  public  and  the  merchant  service.  Then  he  was  appointed  to 
the  command  of  the  Constellation  frigate.  He  was  transferred  to  the  Constitution, 
after  the  destruction  of  the  Gtterriere,  and  off  the  coast  of  Brazil  he  captured  the 
British  frigate  Java,  late  in  December,  1812.  In  that  action  he  was  dangerously- 
wounded.  Among  the  prisoners  was  General  Hislop,  governor  of  Bombay,  who 
was  so  pleased  with  the  kind  attentions  which  he  received  from  Captain  Bain- 
bridge,  that  he  presented  him  with  a  splendid  gold-mounted  sword.  For  his 
gallantry,  Congress  awarded  him  a  gold  medal.  In  1813,  he  took  command  of 
the  Navy  Yard  at  Charlestown.  After  the  war  he  went  twice  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean, in  command  of  squadrons  sent  to  protect  American  commerce.  He  was 
president  of  the  Board  of  Navy  Commissioners  for  three  years ;  and  he  prepared 
the  signals  now  in  use  in  our  navy.  Commodore  Bainbridge  suffered  from  sick- 
ness, for  several  years,  and  his  voyage  of  earthly  life  finally  ended  at  Philadelphia, 
on  the  27th  of  July,  1833,  when  he  was  about  fifty-nine  years  of  age. 


ISAAC    CHAUNCEY. 

/COMMODORE  ISAAC  CHAUNCEY  ranks  among  the  noblest  of  the  naval 
\J  heroes  of  the  second  "War  for  Independence,  notwithstanding  his  operations 
were  confined  during  that  war  to  the  smallest  of  the  great  Lakes  on  our  northern 
frontier.  He  was  a  native  of  Black  Rock,  Fairfield  county,  Connecticut,  where 
he  was  born  at  about  the  commencement  of  the  Revolution.  His  father  was  a 
wealthy  farmer,  and  descendant  of  one  of  the  earlier  settlers  of  that  colony. 
Isaac  was  well  educated,  and  was  designed  for  the  profession  of  the  law,  but  at 
an  early  age  he  ardently  desired  to  try  life  on  the  sea,  and  was  gratified  by  sail- 
ing with  an  excellent  ship-master  from  the  port  of  New  York.  He  loved  the 
occupation,  very  rapidly  acquired  a  thorough  knowledge  of  nautical  affairs,  and 
at  the  age  of  nineteen  years  was  master  of  a  vessel.  He  made  several  successful 
voyages  to  the  P]ast  Indies  in  ships  belonging  to  the  late  John  Jacob  Astor.  In 
1798,  he  entered  the  navy  of  the  United  States,  with  a  lieutenant's  commission, 
under  Commodore  Truxton.  He  behaved  gallantly  in  the  Mediterranean ;  and 
in  actions  off  Tripoli  he  was  acting  captain  of  the  frigate  Constitution.  For  his 
gallantry  and  seamanship  in  that  capacity,  he  received  the  highest  praise  from 
Commodore  Preble,  and  Congress  presented  him  with  an  elegant  sword.  Ho 
was  also  promoted  to  master  commandant,  in  180-1;  and,  in  1806,  he  received 
the  commission  of  captain. 

When  war  with  England  commenced,  in  1812,  Commodore  Chauncey  was 
appointed  to  the  highly-important  post  of  commander  of  the  naval  forces  to  bo 
created  on  Lake  Ontario.  A  few  months  after  his  arrival  at  Sackett's  Harbor, 
then  in  the  midst  of  a  wilderness,  he  had  quite  a  fleet  of  merchant-vessels 
equipped  for  naval  service ;  and  in  the  following  Spring  he  had  a  sloop-of-war 
and  a  frigate  ready  for  duty.  One  was  built  in  twenty-eight  days,  the  other  in 
forty-four,  from  the  time  of  laying  the  keel.  With  these,  and  some  other  addi- 
tions to  his  squadron,  Commodore  Chauncey  performed  very  important  services 
during  the  war,  especially  in  the  transportation  of  troops.  He  could  never  bring 
the  British  naval  commander  on  the  lake  into  action,  and  so  failed  of  making 
any  brilliant  achievement.1 

1.  After  the  war,  Commodore  Chauncey  and  Commander  Yeo  were  dining  together,  when  the  latter 
explained  the  reasons  of  his  avoiding  action.  His  government  instructed  him  to  do  so,  because  all  he 
would  gain  by  a  victory  would  be  the  destruction  of  the  American  fleet,  while  a  defeat  would  be  likely 
to  lead  to  the  entire  loss  of  Canada. 


STEPHEN  DECATUR.  343 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  Commodore  Chauncey  was  appointed  to  the  command 
of  the  Washington,  of  seventy-four  guns;  and,  in  1816,  he  commanded  a  small 
squadron  in  the  Mediterranean.  There  he  assisted  the  American  consul-general 
at  Algiers,  in  negotiating  a  treaty  with  that  power,1  which  continued  in  force 
until  the  French  conquest  of  the  province,  in  1830.  In  every  Mediterranean 
port  that  he  visited,  Commodore  Chauncey  left  a  most  favorable  impression  of 
the  Americans.  He  returned  to  the  United  States  in  1818,  and  after  reposing 
awhile  upon  his  estate  on  the  East  River,  near  the  city  of  New  York,  he  was 
called  to  Washington  city  to  perform  the  duties  of  Navy  Commissioner.  He 
remained  in  the  Federal  city,  in  that  capacity,  until  1824,  when  he  was  appointed 
to  the  command  of  the  naval  station  at  Brooklyn,  New  York.  In  1833,  he  was 
again  chosen  one  of  the  Board  of  Navy  Commissioners,  and  continued  in  that 
service  until  his  death,  when  he  was  president  of  that  body.  He  died  at  "Wash- 
ington city,  on  the  27th  of  January,  1840,  at  the  age  of  about  sixty-five  years. 


STEPHEN    DECATUR. 

A  MONO-  the  naval  heroes  whom  the  Americans  delighted  to  honor,  the  memory 
XA.  of  no  one  is  cherished  with  more  affection  than  that  of  the  gallant  Decatur, 
who,  like  Hamilton,  "lived  like  a  man,  but  died  like  a  fool."  He  was  of  French 
lineage,  and  was  born  on  the  Eastern  Shore  of  Maryland,  on  the  5th  of  January, 
1779.  His  father  was  a  naval  officer,  who,  after  the  establishment  of  the  United 
States  navy,  in  1798,  had  command  first  of  the  sloop-of-war  Delaware,  and  after- 
ward of  the  frigate  Philadelphia,  in  connection  with  whose  fate  his  son  gained 
immortal  honors. 

Stephen  Decatur  was  educated  in  Philadelphia,  and  at  the  age  of  nineteen 
years  entered  the  navy  as  a  midshipman,  under  Commodore  Barry.  He  was 
promoted  to  lieutenant,  in  1799.  Three  times  he  sailed  to  the  Mediterranean, 
while  holding  that  subordinate  commission.  Just  before  his  third  arrival  there, 
the  Philadelphia  frigate  had  struck  upon  a  rock  in  the  harbor  of  Tripoli,  and  had 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Tripolitans.2  Lieutenant  Decatur  immediately  con- 
ceived a  plan  for  re-capturing  or  destroying  the  vessel.  Commodore  Preble  gave 
him  permission  to  execute  it.  At  the  head  of  seventy  volunteers,  in  the  ketch 
Intrepid,  he  entered  the  harbor  of  Tripoli  at  eight  o'clock  on  a  dark  evening  in 
February,  1804.  The  Philadelphia  lay  moored  within  half  gun-shot  of  the 
bashaw's  castle  and  the  main  battery,  with  her  guns  mounted  and  loaded,  and 
watched  by  Tripolitan  gun-boats.  Nothing  daunted,  Decatur  approached  within 
two  hundred  yards  of  the  frigate,  at  eleven  o'clock,  and  was  then  discovered  and 
hailed.  His  Maltese  pilot  misled  the  Tripolitans,  and  Decatur's  intentions  were 
unsuspected,  until  he  was  alongside.  Decatur  and  Midshipman  Morris  sprang 
upon  the  deck  of  the  frigate,  followed  by  the  volunteers,  and  soon  the  vessel 
was  in  complete  possession  of  the  Americans.  She  could  not  be  borne  away,  so 
Decatur  fired  her  in  several  places,  and  escaped  without  losing  a  man.  Only 
four  were  wounded.  For  that  daring  achievement  he  was  promoted  to  post- 
captain.  During  the  remainder  of  the  war  with  Tripoli  he  performed  many  bold 
exploits,  which  gave  him  rank  among  the  noblest  spirits  of  the  age. 

After  his  return  home,  Decatur  was  employed  in  the  superintendence  of  gun- 

1.  The  treaty  which  Commodore  Decatur  had  previously  negotiated  had  been  violated  immediately 
after  that  officer  had  left  the  Mediterranean. 

2.  See  sketch  of  Bainbridge. 


344  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPEE. 

boats,  until  ordered  to  supersede  Commodore  Barren  in  command  of  the  Chesa- 
peake. During  the  war  with  Great  Britain  that  soon  followed,  he  was  distin- 
guished for  his  gallantry  in  action  and  generosity  to  the  vanquished.  In  January, 
1815,  while  in  command  of  the  President,  he  was  made  a  prisoner,  but  was  soon 
released  by  the  treaty  of  peace.  He  was  afterward  despatched,  with  a  squadron, 
to  the  Mediterranean,  and  in  a  very  short  time,  during  the  Summer  of  1815,  he 
completely  humbled  the  piratical  Barbary  Powers — Algiers,  Tunis,  and  Tripoli — 
and  compelled  them  to  make  restitution  of  money  and  prisoners.  He  did  more : 
he  compelled  them  to  relinquish  all  claims  to  tribute  hitherto  given  by  the 
United  States  since  1795.  Full  security  to  American  commerce  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean was  obtained,  and  the  character  of  the  government  of  the  United  States 
was  greatly  elevated  in  the  opinion  of  Europe.  Then  was  accomplished,  during 
a  single  cruise,  what  the  combined  powers  of  Europe  dared  not  to  attempt. 

On  his  return  to  the  United  States,  Commodore  Decatur  was  appointed  one 
of  the  Board  of  Navy  Commissioners,  and  resided  at  Kalorama,  formerly  the  seat 
of  Joel  Barlow,  near  "Washington  city.  For  a  long  time  unpleasant  feelings  had 
existed  between  Decatur  and  Barren;  and,  in  1819,  a  correspondence  between 
them  resulted  in  a  duel  at  Bladensburg.  Both  were  wounded ;  Decatur  mortally. 
That  event  occurred  on  the  22d  of  March,  1820,  and  Decatur  died  that  night,  at 
the  age  of  forty  years.  The  first  intimation  that  his  wife  had  of  the  matter  was 
the  arrival  at  home  of  her  dying  husband,  conveyed  by  his  friends.  Thirty-five 
years  have  since  rolled  away,  and  his  "beloved  Susan"  yet  [1855]  remains  tho 
widow  of  Stephen  Decatur. 


JAMES    FENIMORE    COOPER. 

rE  name  of  James  Fenimore  Cooper,  is  first  on  the  list  of  American  novelists, 
and  it  will  be  long  before  one  so  gifted  shall  wear  his  mantle  as  an  equal. 
"He  was  one  of  those  frank  and  decided  characters  who  make  strong  enemies 
and  warm  friends — who  repel  by  the  positiveness  of  their  convictions,  while  they 
attract  by  the  richness  of  their  culture  and  the  amiability  of  their  lives."  Mr. 
Cooper  was  born  at  Burlington,  New  Jersey,  on  the  15th  of  September,  1789. 
His  father,  an  immigrant  from  England,  had  settled  there  some  twenty  years 
before.  When  James  was  two  years  of  age,  the  family  removed  to  the  banks  of 
Otsego  Lake,  and  there  founded  the  settlement  and  beautiful  village  of  Coopers- 
town.  The  lad  was  prepared  for  college  by  Eev.  Mr.  Ellison,  rector  of  St.  Peter's 
Church,  Albany;  entered  Yale  as  a  student,  in  1802,  and  was  graduated  there 
in  1805.  He  chose  the  navy  as  the  theatre  of  action,  and  entered  it  as  a  mid- 
shipman, in  1806.  After  a  service  of  six  years,  he  was  about  to  be  promoted  to 
lieutenant,  when  he  loved  and  married  Miss  Delancey  (sister  of  the  present 
[1855]  Bishop  Delancey  of  the  diocese  of  Western  New  York),  and  left  the  navy 
forever.  It  was  a  school  in  which  he  was  trained  for  the  special  service  of  lit- 
erature in  a  peculiar  way ;  and  to  his  nautical  information  and  experience  during 
that  six  years,  we  are  indebted  for  those  charming  sea-stories  from  his  pen,  which 
gave  him  such  great  celebrity  at  home  and  abroad. 

Mr.  Cooper's  first  production,  of  any  pretensions,  was  a  novel  entitled  Persecu- 
tion, a  tale  of  English  life.  It  was  published  anonymously,  met  with  small  suc- 
cess, and  the  author  was  inclined  to  abandon  the  pen  that  had  so  deceived  him 
with  false  hopes.  He  resolved  to  try  again,  and  The  Spy  was  the  result.  His 
triumph  was  now  greater  than  his  previous  failure.  That  work  was  a  broad 
foundation  of  a  brilliant  superstructure,  and  Fame  waited  upon  the  author  with 


JAMES  FENIMOKE   COOPER. 


345 


abundant  laurels.  In  1823,  his  Pioneers  appeared ;  and  as  the  series  of  Leather- 
Stocking  Tales — The  Prairie,  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  The  Pathfinder,  and  The 
Deerslayer — were  published,  they  were  read  with  the  greatest  eagerness.  His 
fame  was  fully  established ;  and  by  the  publication  of  his  novels  in  Europe, 
American  literature  began  to  attract  attention  in  quarters  where  it  had  been 
sneered  at.  His  series  of  admirable  sea-stories  were  equally  successful ;  and  as 
The  Pilot,  The  Red  Rover,  The  Water  Witch,  The  Two  Admirals,  and  Wing  and 
Wing,  were  issued  from  the  press,  they  were  sought  after  and  read  with  the 
greatest  avidity. 

In  1826,  Mr.  Cooper  went  to  Europe,  preceded  by  a  fame  that  gave  him  a  key 
to  the  best  society  there.  On  all  occasions  he  was  the  noble  and  fearless  cham- 
pion of  his  country  and  democracy,  and  his  pen  was  often  employed  in  defence 
of  these,  even  while  his  genius  was  receiving  the  homage  of  aristocracy.  "While 
abroad,  he  wrote  The  Bravo,  The  Ileidenmaur,  The  Headsman,  and  one  or  two 
inferior  tales ;  and  on  his  return  home,  he  wrote  Homeward  Bound,  and  Home  as 
Found.  These  were  preceded  by  a  Letter  to  his  Countrymen.  The  preparation 
and  publication  of  these  works  were  unfortunate  for  the  reputation  and  personal 
ease  of  Mr.  Cooper ;  and  his  sensitiveness  to  the  lash  of  critics  speedily  involved 
him  in  law-suits  with  editors  whom  he  prosecuted  as  libelers.  His  feuds  in- 
creased his  naturally  irritable  nature,  and  for  several  years  they  embittered  his 
life.  They  finally  ceased ;  his  ruffled  spirit  became  calm ;  the  current  of  popular 
feeling  which  had  been  turned  against  him  resumed  its  old  channels  of  admira- 

15* 


346  NICHOLAS  BIDDLE. 


tion,  and  the  evening  of  his  days  were  blessed  with  tranquillity.  At  his  hospit- 
able mansion  on  the  banks  of  the  Otsego,  he  enjoyed  domestic  peace  and  the 
society  of  intellectual  friends;  and  there,  on  the  14th  of  September,  1851,  his 
spirit  went  to  its  final  rest,  when  he  lacked  but  one  day  of  being  sixty-two  years 


Mr.  Cooper  is  best  known  to  the  world  as  a  novelist,  yet  ho  was  the  author 
of  several  works  of  graver  import.  Among  these  may  be  named  a  Naval  History 
of  the  United  States,  Gleanings  in  Europe,  Sketches  of  Switzerland,  and  several 
smaller  works,  some  of  them  controversial.  "He  still  lives,"  says  a  pleasant 
writer,  "in  the  hearts  of  grateful  millions,  whose  spirits  have  been  stirred  within 
them  by  his  touching  pathos,  and  whose  love  of  country  has  been  warmed  into 
new  life  by  the  patriotism  of  his  eloquent  pen." 


NICHOLAS     BIDDLE. 

rPHE  contest  between  President  Jackson,  chief  magistrate  of  the  Republic,  and 
-L  President  Biddle,  chief  magistrate  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  forms 
a  most  interesting  chapter  in  our  political  and  social  history.  The  latter  was  a 
native  of  Philadelphia,  the  scene  of  that  warfare,  where  he  was  born  on  the  8th 
of  January,  1786.  His  ancestors  were  among  the  earlier  settlers  in  that  State, 
and  came  to  America  with  William  Penn.  His  father  was  distinguished  for  his 
patriotic  services  during  the  "War  for  Independence ;  and  while  Dr.  Franklin  was 
chief  magistrate  of  that  commonwealth,  he  was  vice-president.  Nicholas  was 
educated  first  in  the  academy  at  Philadelphia,  then  in  the  college  department  of 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  completed  his  collegiate  course  in  the  col- 
lege at  Princeton,  in  September,  1801.  He  was  unsurpassed  in  his  class,  for 
scholarship,  when  he  was  graduated.  The  law  was  his  choice  as  a  profession, 
and  he  was  almost  prepared  to  enter  upon  its  practice,  in  1804,  when  he  ac- 
cepted an  invitation  from  General  Armstrong  (who  had  been  appointed  minister 
to  France),  to  accompany  him  as  his  private  secretary.  He  visited  several  coun- 
tries on  the  Continent  before  his  return,  and  was  private  secretary,  for  awhile, 
to  Mr.  Monroe,  representative  of  the  United  States  at  the  English  court. 

Mr.  Biddle  returned  to  America,  in  1807,  and  commenced  the  practice  of  his 
profession  in  Philadelphia,  where,  in  connection  with  Mr.  Dennie,  he  edited  the 
"  Port-Folio,"  until  the  death  of  the  latter.  He  also  prepared  a  history  of  Lewis 
and  Clarke's  expedition  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  across  the  Continent,  from  material, 
placed  in  his  hands.  In  the  Autumn  of  1810,  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the 
lower  house  of  the  legislature  of  Pennsylvania,  where  he  distinguished  himself 
by  efforts  in  favor  of  a  common-school  system ;  and  also  in  favor  of  the  re-charter 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  He  declined  a  reelection,  in  1811,  but  was  a 
member  of  the  State  Senate,  in  1814,  where  he  evinced  much  sound  statesman- 
ship. He  was  afterward  twice  nominated  for  Congress,  but  his  party  (demo- 
cratic) being  in  the  minority,  he  was  not  elected.  In  1819,  he  was  appointed 
one  of  the  government  directors  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  at  which  time 
Langdon  Cheves  became  its  president.  That  gentleman  resigned,  in  1823,  and 
Mr.  Biddle  was  chosen  to  succeed  him,  by  an  unanimous  vote.  For  sixteen 
years  he  stood  at  the  head  of  that  great  moneyed  institution,  and  conducted  its 
affairs  with  wonderful  ability.  "When  President  Jackson  brought  all  the  influ- 
ence of  his  position  to  bear  against  the  re-charter  of  the  bank,  Mr.  Biddle  sum- 
moned the  resources  of  his  genius,  and  sustained  the  unequal  contest  for  a  long 


JOHN  SULLIVAN.  347 


time.  But  he  was  obliged  to  yield.  The  bank  expired  by  its  charter-limitation, 
in  1836,  when  it  was  incorporated  by  the  State  of  Pennsylvania.  Mr.  Biddle 
continued  at  the  head  of  the  institution  until  1839,  when  he  retired  to  private 
life,  to  enjoy  repose  at  his  beautiful  estate  of  Andalusia,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Delaware,  above  Philadelphia.  There  the  great  financier  died,  on  the  27th  of 
February,  1844,  at  the  age  of  fifty-eight  years.  Among  other  papers  of  value 
prepared  by  Mr.  Biddle,  was  a  volume  compiled  at  the  request  of  Mr.  Monroe, 
and  published  by  Congress,  entitled  Commercial  Digest. 


JOHN    SULLIVAN. 

LIKE  General  St.  Clair,  General  Sullivan  was  a  meritorious  but  often  unfortu- 
nate officer.  His  chief  fault  seemed  to  be  a  want  of  vigilance ;  and  during 
the  Revolution  that  weakness  proved  disastrous — first  at  Bedford,  near  Brooklyn, 
in  1776,  and  on  the  Brandy  wine  a  year  later.1  John  Sullivan  was  of  Irish 
descent,  and  was  born  in  Berwick,  Maine,  on  the  17th  of  February,  1740.  His 
youth  was  spent  chiefly  in  farm  labor.  At  maturity  he  studied  law,  and  estab- 
lished himself  in  its  practice  in  Durham,  New  Hampshire,  where  he  soon  rose 
to  considerable  distinction  as  an  advocate  and  politician.  He  was  chosen  a 
delegate  to  the  Continental  Congress,  in  1774,  and  soon  after  his  return  from 
Philadelphia  he  was  engaged,  with  John  Langdon  and  others,  in  seizing  Fort 
William  and  Mary,  at  Portsmouth.2  "When,  the  following  year,  the  Continental 
army  was  organized,  he  was  appointed  one  of  the  eight  brigadiers  first  commis- 
sioned by  Congress;  and  early  in  1776,  he  was  promoted  to  major-general. 
Early  in  the  Spring  of  that  year  he  superseded  Arnold  in  command  of  the  Con- 
tinental troops  in  Canada ;  and  later  in  the  season  he  joined  Washington  at  New 
York.  General  Greene  commanded  the  chief  forces  at  Brooklyn,  designed  to 
repel  the  invaders,  then  on  Staten  Island,  but  was  taken  sick,  and  the  leadership 
of  his  division  was  assigned  to  Sullivan.  In  the  disastrous  battle  that  soon  fol- 
lowed, he  was  made  prisoner,  but  was  soon  afterward  exchanged,  and  took  com- 
mand of  Lee's  division,  in  New  Jersey,  after  that  officer's  capture,  later  in  the 
season.  In  the  Autumn  of  1777,  General  Sullivan  was  in  the  battles  of  Brandy- 
wine  and  Germantown;  and  in  the  succeeding  Winter,  he  was  stationed  in 
Rhode  Island,  preparatory  to  an  attempted  expulsion  of  the  British  therefrom. 
He  besieged  Newport,  in  August,  1778,  but  was  unsuccessful,  because  the  French 
Admiral  D'Estaing  would  not  cooperate  with  him,  according  to  promise  and 
arrangement.  General  Sullivan's  military  career  closed  after  his  memorable 
campaign  against  the  Indians,  in  Western  New  York,  early  in  the  Autumn  of 
1779.  He  resigned  his  commission  because  he  felt  aggrieved  at  some  action  of 
the  Board  of  War,  and  was  afterward  elected  to  a  seat  in  Congress.  From  1786 
to  1789,  he  was  president  or  governor  of  New  Hampshire,  when,  under  the 
provision  of  the  new  Federal  Constitution,  he  was  appointed  district  judge.  That 
office  he  held  until  his  death,  which  occurred  on  the  23d  of  January,  1795,  when 
he  was  in  the  fifty-fifth  year  of  his  age. 

1.  The  first  was  at  the  close  of  August,  1776.     That  conflict  is  generally  known  as  the  Battle  of  Long 
Island.     On  account  of  Sullivan's  want  of  vigilance,  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  unobserved,  got  in  his  rear  near 
Bedford,  cut  off  his  retreat  to  the  American,  lines,  and  placed  the  Americans  between  the  balls  and 
bayonets  of  the  British  in  the  rear  and  the  Hessians  in  front.    Because  of  a  lack  of  vigilance  on  the 
Brandywine,  in  September,  1777i  Sullivan  allowed  Cornwallis  to  cross  that  stream,  unobserved,  and  to 
fall  upon  the  rear  of  the  American  army. 

2.  See  sketch  of  Langdon. 


348  JAMES  BROWN. — OLIVER   HAZZARD   PERRY. 


JAMES    BROWN. 

ONE  of  the  early  enterprising  Americans  who  sought  and  obtained  wealth  and 
renown  in  the  newly-acquired  Territory  of  Louisiana,  was  James  Brown,  a 
distinguished  Senator  and  diplomatist.  He  was  born  near  Staunton,  Virginia, 
on  the  llth  of  September,  1766.  He  was  one  of  a  dozen  children  of  a  Presby- 
terian clergymen,  and  was  educated  at  "William  and  Mary  College,  at  Williams- 
burg.  After  studying  law  under  the  eminent  George  Wythe,  he  went  to  Ken- 
tucky, and  joined  his  elder  brother,  John,  who  represented  that  State  in  Congress 
for  about  twenty  years.  When  that  brother  was  called  to  political  life,  James 
succeeded  him  in  his  law  practice,  and  soon  rose  to  eminence.  In  1791,  he 
commanded  a  company  of  mounted  riflemen,  under  General  Charles  Scott,  in  an 
expedition  against  the  Indians  in  the  Wabash  Valley.  When,  in  1792,  Kentucky 
was  admitted  into  the  Union  as  a  sovereign  commonwealth,  Governor  Shelby 
appointed  Mr.  Brown  Secretary  of  State.  He  resided  at  Frankfort  most  of  the 
time.  He  and  Henry  Clay  married  sisters,  daughters  of  Colonel  Thomas  Hart, 
and  were  cotemporaries  at  the  bar. 

After  the  purchase  of  Louisiana,  Mr.  Brown  went  to  New  Orleans,  and  at  once 
entered  into  an  extensive  and  lucrative  practice,  for  there  was  an  immense 
amount  of  valuable  property  requiring  identification  of  ownership,  through  the 
medium  of  the  new  courts.  He  was  associated  with  Mr.  Livingston  in  the  com- 
pilation of  the  civil  code  of  Louisiana,  and  continued  his  lucrative  law  practice 
in  New  Orleans,  until  1813,  when  he  was  elected  one  of  the  first  Senators  in 
Congress  from  the  newly-organized  State.  He  also  held  the  office  of  United 
States  District  Attorney,  by  the  appointment  of  President  Jefferson.  In  Con- 
gress he  ably  sustained  the  administration,  in  its  war  measures.  He  left  the 
Senate  in  1817,  but  returned  to  it  again,  .after  a  reelection,  in  1819.  President 
Monroe  esteemed  him  very  highly ;  and,  in  1823,  he  appointed  him  minister 
plenipotentiary  to  France.  He  filled  that  station  with  great  dignity  and  ability 
until  the  Autumn  of  1829,  when  he  obtained  permission  to  return  home.  Ho 
then  retired  to  private  life,  and  could  never  be  induced  to  leave  its  coveted 
repose  afterward.  He  died  of  apoplexy,  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  on  the  7th 
of  April,  1835,  in  the  sixty-ninth  year  of  his  age. 


OLIVER    HAZZARD    PERRY. 

THE  laconic  despatch  of  Commodore  Perry —  We  have  met  the  enemy  and  they 
are  ours — and  the  Veni  vidi  vici  of  the  old  Roman,  will  ever  stand  as  paral- 
lels on  the  page  of  History.  The  gallant  author  of  that  despatch  was  born  in 
South  Kingston,  Rhode  Island,  on  the  23d  of  August,  1785.  His  father  was 
then  in  the  naval  service  of  the  United  States,  and  dedicated  his  infant  son  to 
that  profession.  He  entered  the  navy  as  a  midshipman,  at  the  age  of  thirteen 
years,  on  board  of  the  sloop-of-war,  General  Greene.  At  that  time,  war  with 
France  seemed  inevitable ;  but  young  Perry  was  not  permitted  to  see  active 
service  until  the  difficulties  with  Tripoli  afforded  him  an  opportunity,  he  being 
in  the  squadron  of  Commodore  Preble.  Always  thoughtful,  studious,  and  in- 
quisitive on  ship-board,  he  soon  became  a  skilful  seaman  and  navigator,  and  an 
accomplished  disciplinarian. 

In  1810,  Midshipman  Perry  was  promoted  to  lieutenant,  and  placed  in  com- 


OLIVER   HAZZARD   PERRY. 


349 


mand  of  the  schooner  JRevenge,  attached  to  Commodore  Rodger's  squadron,  then 
cruising  in  the  vicinity  of  New  London,  in  Long  Island  Sound.  In  that  vessel 
he  was  wrecked  the  following  Spring,  but  was  not  only  acquitted  of  all  blame 
by  a  court  of  inquiry  held  at  his  request,  but  his  conduct  in  saving  guns  and 
stores  was  highly  applauded.  Early  in  1812,  he  was  placed  in  command  of  a 
flotilla  of  gun-boats  in  New  York  harbor.  He  soon  became  disgusted  with  that 
service,  and  solicited  and  obtained,  for  himself  and  his  men,  permission  to  reen- 
force  Commodore  Chauncey  on  Lake  Ontario.  That  officer  immediately  despatched 
Perry  to  Lake  Erie,  to  superintend  the  building  of  a  small  squadron  there  to 
oppose  a  British  naval  force  on  those  western  waters.  "When  ready,  Perry 
cruised  about  the  west  end  of  the  Lake,  and  on  the  10th  of  September,  1813,  he 
had  a  severe  engagement  with  the  enemy.  In  the  Lawrence,  which  displayed 
at  its  mast-head  the  words  of  the  hero  after  whom  she  was  named — Don't  give 
up  the  ship] — Perry  led  the  squadron,  and  after  many  acts  of  great  skill  and 
courage,  he  achieved  a  complete  victory.  He  was  then  only  twenty-seven  years 
of  age.  It  was  one  of  the  most  important  events  of  the  war.  The  victor  was 
promoted  to  captain,  received  the  thanks  of  Congress  and  State  legislatures,  and 
was  honored  by  his  government  with  a  gold  commemorative  medal. 

After  the  war,  Captain  Perry  was  placed  in  command  of  the  Java,  a  first-class 
frigate,  and  sailed  with  Commodore  Decatur  to  the  Mediterranean,  to  punish  the 
piratical  Dey  of  Algiers.  After  his  return  to  the  United  States,  he  performed  a 

I.  FSoo  sketch  of  James  Lawrence. 


350  WILLIAM   GASTON. 


deed  of  heroism  equal  to  any  achieved  in  the  public  service.  His  vessel  was 
lying  in  Newport  harbor,  in  mid-Winter.  During  a  fearful  storm,  intelligence 
reached  him  that  a  merchant  vessel  was  wrecked  upon  a  reef,  six  miles  distant. 
He  immediately  manned  his  barge,  said  to  his  crew,  "Come,  my  boys,  we  are 
going  to  the  relief  of  shipwrecked  seamen;  pull  away!"  and  soon  afterward  he 
had  rescued  eleven  half-exhausted  men,  who  were  clinging  to  the  floating  quar- 
ter-deck of  their  broken  vessel.  To  Perry,  it  was  an  act  of  simple  duty  in  the 
cause  of  humanity ;  to  his  countrymen,  it  appeared  as  holiest  heroism,  deserving 
of  a  civic  crown. 

The  commerce  of  the  United  States  was  greatly  annoyed  and  injured  by 
swarms  of  pirates  who  infested  the  West  India  seas.  A  small  American  squad- 
ron was  stationed  there;  and,  in  1819,  Commodore  Perry  was  sent  thither,  in 
the  John  Adams,  to  take  command  of  the  little  fleet,  chastise  the  buccaneers, 
and  exchange  friendly  courtesies  with  the  new  republics  on  the  Caribbean  coast. 
When  he  arrived,  the  yellow  fever  was  prevailing  in  the  squadron.  The  com- 
modore was  soon  attacked  by  that  terrible  disease,  and  on  his  birth-day,  the  23d 
of  August,  1819,  just  as  his  vessel  was  entering  the  harbor  of  Port  Spain,  Trin- 
idad, he  expired,  at  the  age  of  thirty-four  years.  He  was  buried  with  military 
honors,  the  following  day.  Seventeen  years  afterward,  his  remains  were  brought 
to  his  native  land,  in  a  vessel  of  war,  and  interred  in  the  North  burying-ground, 
at  Newport,  Rhode  Island.  Over  his  grave  the  State  of  Rhode  Island  erected  a 
granite  monument;  and  soon  after  his  decease,  Congress  made  a  liberal  provision 
for  his  aged  mother,  and  his  widow  and  children.  That  widow  yet  [1855]  lives, 
at  Newport,  the  beloved  relict  of  one  of  the  most  gallant  and  accomplished  men 
whose  deeds  have  honored  our  Republic.1 


WILLIAM    OASTON. 

A  MONG  the  more  recent  lights  of  the  North  Carolina  bar,  was  William  Gaston, 
JL\.  the  eminent  statesman,  the  upright  judge,  and  the  profound  scholar.  He 
was  born  at  Newbern,  North  Carolina,  on  the  19th  of  September,  1778.  His 
family  was  greatly  distinguished  for  patriotism  during  the  War  for  Independence, 
and  that  moral  quality  occupied  a  large  space  in  his  character.  His  father  died 
when  he  was  only  three  years  of  age,  and  he  was  left  to  the  care  of  his  excellent 
mother,  a  member  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  At  the  age  of  thirteen  years 
he  was  sent  to  the  college  at  Georgetown,  District  of  Columbia,2  where  he  took 
special  delight  in  the  study  of  the  ancient  classics.  His  health  became  impaired 
by  excessive  application  to  his  studies,  and  he  was  called  home.  After  some 
further  preparation  he  entered  the  college  at  Princeton,  as  a  student,  in  1794, 
where  he  was  graduated,  two  years  afterward,  with  the  highest  honors.  He 
studied  law  in  his  native  town,  with  Francis  Xavier  Martin,  and  was  admitted  to 
practice  in  1798.  Before  he  was  twenty-two  years  of  age,  he  was  a  member  of 
the  Senate  of  North  Carolina,  where  his  talents  soon  became  very  conspicuous. 
In  1808,  he  was  one  of  the  electors  of  President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States;  and  from  1813  until  1817,  he  was  a  representative  of  his  district  in  the 
Federal  Congress.  He  was  a  warm  opponent  of  Madison's  administration,  and 

1.  A  son  of  Commodore  Perry,  bearing;  the  title  of  his  honored  father,  has  been  instrumental  in  gain- 
ing great  commercial  advantages  for  the  United  States.      In  command  of  a  squadron,  he  made  an 
official  visit  to  Japan,  and,  by  admirably-conducted  negotiations,  he  succeeded  in  forming  a  treaty 
with  the  government  of  that  empire,  in  1854,  by  which  its  long-sealed  ports  have  been  opened  to  Amer- 
ican vessels  for  ever. 

2.  See  sketch  of  Archbishop  Carroll. 


ZERAH  COLBURN.  351 


ably  battled  against  the  war,  with  his  Federal  associates  of  New  England.  One 
of  his  most  powerful  speeches  in  Congress  was  in  the  early  part  of  1815,  against 
the  proposition  for  authorizing  the  President  to  contract  a  loan  of  twenty-five 
millions  of  dollars,  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  on  the  war.  His  learning  and 
eloquence  created  great  surprise,  and  he  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  ablest  and 
most  useful  men  in  Congress.  His  own  State  was  enriched  by  his  labors  after 
181*7,  where,  for  twenty-seven  years  longer,  he  was  unremitting  in  active  duties 
at  the  bar,  in  the  legislature,  in  the  convention  to  amend  the  Constitution  of  the 
State,  and  as  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  North  Carolina  He  was  chosen 
to  the  latter  office  in  1834,  with  the  universal  approbation  of  the  people,  not- 
withstanding a  provision  of  the  then  existing  State  Constitution,  prohibited  all 
but  Protestant  Christians,  holding  a  judicial  station. 

The  memory  of  few  men  is  so  warmly  cherished  as  that  of  Judge  G-aston,  by 
the  North  Carolinians.  He  was  an  elegant  writer  of  both  prose  and  poetry, 
pure  in  all  his  thoughts  and  acts,  arid  a  noble  citizen  in  every  particular.  During 
all  his  life  he  cherished  the  memory  of  his  mother  with  fondest  affection,  and 
uniformly  attributed  to  her  tender  care  and  wise  counsels,  under  Providence,  all 
of  the  moral  strength  of  his  character,  and  his  success  in  life.1  Sweetly  has  Mrs. 
Sigourney  sung — 

"  This  tells  to  mothers  what  a  holy  charge 
Is  theirs  ;  with  what  a  kingly  power  their  love 
May  rule  the  fountains  of  the  new-horn  mind ; 
Warns  them  to  wake  at  early  dawn  and  sow 
Good  seed  before  the  world  doth  sow  its  tares." 

Judge  Graston  died  on  the  23d  of  January,  1844,  in  the  sixty-sixth  year  of  his 
age. 


ZERAH    COLBURN. 

THE  career  of  Zerah  Colburn,  who  was  remarkable  for  his  extraordinary  per- 
formances in  mental  arithmetic,  exhibits  the  melancholy  spectacle  of  a  life 
made  comparatively  miserable  by  a  dependence  upon  one  precocious  faculty,  and 
the  greed  of  a  misguided  parent.  He  was  born  at  Cabot,  Vermont,  on  the  1st 
of  September,  1804,  and  until  he  was  almost  six  years  of  age,  he  appeared  the 
dullest  of  his  father's  children.  At  about  that  time  he  exhibited  extraordinary 
powers  of  calculation,  by  a  mental  process  wholly  his  own,  and  which  he  could 
not  explain.  His  father  was  led  to  expect  great  achievements  by  his  gifted  boy, 
and  at  the  same  time,  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  procuring  money  to  have  him 
educated,  he  took  him  to  different  places  in  New  England,  to  be  examined,  hop- 
ing to  meet  with  some  generous  aid.  It  was  offered  by  the  president  of  Dart- 
mouth College,  who  proposed  to  educate  Zerah  at  his  own  expense.  Hoping 
for  a  more  favorable  offer,  his  father  took  him  to  Boston,  where  his  wonderful 
powers  created  a  great  sensation.  They  were  indeed  wonderful.  The  most 
difficult  questions  on  the  various  arithmetical  rules,  were  solved  almost  instantly, 
by  a  mental  process,  for  the  manual  labor  of  making  figures  was  altogether  too 
tardy  for  his  calculations. 

1.  When  he  was  only  seven  or  eight  years  of  age,  he  was  remarkable  for  his  expertness  in  learning  his 
lessons  in  school.  A  little  boy  said  to  him  one  day,  "  William,  why  is  it  that  you  are  always  at  the 
head  of  the  class,  and  I  am  always  at  the  foot?"  "  There  is  a  reason,"  William  replied,  "  but  if  I  tell 
you,  you  must  promise  to  keep  it  a  secret,  and  do  as  I  do.  Whenever  I  take  up  a  book  to  study,  I  first 
say  a  little  prayer  my  mother  taught  me,  that  I  may  be  able  to  learn  my  lessons."  And  such  was  his 
practice  through  life.  He  never  attempted  any  thing  of  moment,  without  first  invoking  Divine  assist- 
ance. 


352  JAMES   LAWKENCE. 

Several  gentlemen  in  Boston  offered  to  educate  the  lad,  but  his  father  would 
not  consent.  He  travelled  with  him  through  many  of  the  Middle  and  Southern 
States,  exhibiting  him  for  money;  and,  in  1812,  he  went  with  him  to  England, 
for  the  same  purpose.  After  travelling  through  much  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land, they  went  to  France,  and  young  Colburn  became  a  student  in  the  Lycee 
Napoleon,  for  a  short  time.  But  in  all  these  wanderings  the  education  of  the 
boy  was  neglected,  and  the  unwise  father  had  utterly  failed  in  what  appeared  to 
be  his  main  object — money-making — when,  in  1816,  they  returned  to  Eng- 
land. There  the  lad  found  a  generous  patron  in  the  Earl  of  Bristol,  who  placed 
him  in  "Westminster  school,  and  kept  him  there  about  three  years.  Young 
Colburn  was  making  fine  progress,  and  gave  many  promises  of  future  success, 
when  his  father  refused  to  comply  with  some  wishes  of  the  earl,  and  the  patron- 
age of  that  peer  was  lost.  The  foolish  and  greedy  father  then  had  his  son  pre- 
pared for  the  stage,  but  he  was  a  poor  actor,  and  was  soon  obliged  to  abandon 
that  profession,  and  become  an  assistant  teacher  in  a  school  in  London,  to  pro- 
cure bread.  Zerah  finally  opened  a  school  on  his  own  account,  and  he  earned 
some  money  by  making  astronomical  calculations  for  Dr.  Young,  then  Secretary 
of  the  Board  of  Longitude.  The  elder  Colburn  died  in  1824,  and  the  Earl  of 
Bristol  and  others,  assisted  Zerah  with  means  to  return  to  his  native  country. 
He  was  then  twenty  years  of  age.  After  spending  some  time  with  his  mother 
and  sisters,  he  became  assistant  teacher  in  an  academy  connected  with  Hamilton 
College,  in  the  State  of  New  York.  He  soon  afterward  went  to  Burlington, 
Vermont,  where  he  gained  a  precarious  living  by  teaching  the  French  language. 
There  he  united  himself  with  the  Methodist  Society,  and  soon  afterward  became 
an  itinerant  preacher.  Ho  was  an  indifferent  speaker.  Finally,  in  1835,  ho 
settled  at  Norwich,  Connecticut,  and  became  Professor  of  Latin,  Greek,  French, 
and  Spanish  languages,  in  the  "  Norwich  University."  Two  years  previously, 
he  had  written  and  published  a  memoir  of  himself,  which  contains  a  great  deal 
of  curious  narrative.  He  died  at  Norwich,  on  the  2d  of  March,  1840,  in  the 
thirty-fifth  year  of  his  age.  The  moral  of  his  life  is,  that  the  wonderful  develop- 
ment of  a  single  faculty,  only,  is  no  guaranty  of  success. 


JAMES    LAWRENCE. 

A  SINGLE  act — a  single  expression — is  sometimes  sufficient  to  give  a  name 
an  earthly  immortality.  The  acts  and  words  of  Captain  James  Lawrence 
present  an  illustrative  example.  He  was  the  son  of  a  lawyer  in  Burlington, 
New  Jersey,  where  he  was  born  on  the  1st  of  October,  1781.  While  yet  a  small 
boy  he  felt  irrepressible  longings  for  the  sea ;  and  at  the  ago  of  sixteen  years  ho 
was  gratified  by  receiving  the  appointment  of  midshipman  in  the  navy.  He  was 
schooled  in  the  war  against  Tripoli.  He  acted  as  Decatur's  first  lieutenant  in 
the  daring  achievement  of  burning  the  Philadelphia  frigate  under  the  guns  of 
the  Tripolitan  batteries ;  and  he  remained  for  several  years  in  the  Mediterranean, 
in  command  successively  of  the  Vixen,  Wasp,  Argus,  and  Hornet.  With  the 
latter  he  captured  the  Peacock  off  the  coast  of  Demerara,  in  February,  1813 ;  and 
on  his  return  he  was  promoted  to  post  captain,  and  placed  in  command  of  tho 
frigate  Chesapeake.  While  lying  in  Boston  Harbor,  at  the  close  of  May,  the 
British  frigate  Shannon  appeared,  and  signalled  a  challenge  for  the  Chesapeake 
to  come  out  and  fight.  It  was  accepted  by  Lawrence,  and  on  the  morning  cf 
the  1st  of  June,  he  went  out  to  engage  in  that  naval  duel  which  proved  so  dis- 
astrous. They  opened  their  guns  upon  each  other,  late  in  the  afternoon.  Early 


ZACHARY  TAYLOK.  353 


in  the  action  Captain  Lawrence  was  wounded  in  the  leg.  The  vessels  came  so 
near  each  other,  that  the  anchor  of  the  Chesapeake  caught  in  one  of  the  ports 
of  the  Shannon,  and  her  guns  could  not  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  enemy. 
While  in  that  situation,  Captain  Lawrence  received  his  death-wound,  from  a 
bullet,  and  when  carried  below,  he  cried  out  in  those  imperishable  words — 
words  which  the  brave  Perry  placed  at  his  mast-head  three  months  afterward — 
"Don't  give  up  the  ship."1-  The  Chesapeake  was  captured  after  an  action  of 
eleven  minutes,  and  a  loss  of  one  hundred  and  forty-six  men,  in  killed  and 
wounded.  Captain  Lawrence  lived,  in  great  pain,  four  days,  when  he  died,  on 
the  6th  of  June,  1813,  at  the  age  of  thirty-one  years.  He  was  buried  at  Halifax, 
Nova  Scotia,  with  military  honors.  His  remains  were  afterward  conveyed  to 
New  York,  and  interred  in  Trinity  church-yard,  where  an  appropriate  monument 
was  erected  to  his  memory.  It  fell  into  decay,  and  a  more  beautiful  one  has 
since  been  reared. 


ZACHAKY    TAYLOR. 

THE  people  of  the  United  States  are  professedly  peace-loving,  yet  nowhere  is 
1  a  military  hero  more  sincerely  worshipped  by  vast  masses  than  here,  not, 
we  may  charitably  hope,  because  of  his  vocation,  but  because  of  the  good  achieved 
for  his  country  by  his  brave  deeds.  And  when  that  worship  is  excessive  be- 
cause of  some  brilliant  act,  then  the  people  desire  to  apotheosize  the  hero  by 
crowning  him  with  the  highest  honors  of  the  nation — the  civic  wreath  of  chief 
magistrate.  Of  four  already  thus  rewarded,  General  Zachary  Taylor  was  the 
last.  He  was  a  native  of  Virginia,  the  "mother  of  Presidents,"  and  was  born  in 
Orange  county,  on  the  24th  of  September,  1784.  His  father  removed  to  Ken- 
tucky the  following  year,  and  settled  near  the  site  of  the  present  city  of  Louis- 
ville. At  the  age  of  about  twenty -four  years  he  entered  the  army  of  the  United 
States  as  first  lieutenant  of  infantry,  and  two  years  afterward  he  married  Miss 
Margaret  Smith,  a  young  lady  of  good  family  in  Maryland.  When  war  was 
declared  against  Great  Britain,  in  1812,  he  held  a  captain's  commission,  and  he 
was  placed  in  command  of  Fort  Harrison,  a  stockade  on  the  Wabash  river. 
There,  in  his  gallant  operations  against  the  Indians,  he  gave  promise  of  future 
renown,  and  for  his  heroic  defence  of  his  post  he  was  breveted  major.  During 
the  whole  war  he  was  an  exceedingly  useful  officer  in  the  North-west.  At  the 
close  of  the  contest,  when  the  army  was  reduced,  he  was  deprived  of  his  majority 
and  re-commissioned  a  captain.  His  pride  would  not  brook  the  measure,  and 
he  left  the  service.  He  was  soon  after  reinstated  as  major,  by  President  Madi- 
son. 

In  1816,  Major  Taylor  was  placed  in  command  of  a  post  at  Green  Bay;  and 
two  years  afterward  he  was  promoted  to  lieutenant-colonel.  In  that  position  he 
remained  until  1832,  when  President  Jackson,  who  appreciated  his  great  merits, 
gave  him  the  commission  of  colonel.  Ho  served  with  distinction  under  General 
Scott  in  the  "Black  Hawk  War,"  and  remained  in  command  of  Fort  Crawford, 
at  Prairie  du  Chien,  until  1836.  Then  he  went  to  Florida,  and  in  his  operations 
against  the  Seminoles,  he  evinced  generalship  superior  to  any  officer  there.  Be- 
cause of  his  gallantry  in  the  battle  at  Okeechobee  swamp,  at  the  close  of  1837,  he  was 
breveted  brigadier-general ;  and  the  following  year  the  command  of  all  the  troops 

1.  Recently  a  newspaper  paragraph  asserted  that  a  person  now  living,  who  was  with  Captain  Lawrence 
when  he  uttered  the  expression  attributed  to  him,  says  that  his  words  were,  instead  of  "  Don't  give  up 
the  ship  !  the  more  probable  ones,  on  such  an  occasion,  Fight  her  till  she  kinJts." 


354 


ZACHARY    TAYLOR. 


in  Florida  was  assigned  to  him.  There  he  remained  until  1 840,  when  he  was 
appointed  to  the  command  of  the  South-western  division  of  the  army.  He  took 
post  at  Fort  Gibson,  in  1841,  and  removed  his  family  to  Baton  Rouge,  Louisiana, 
the  same  year,  where  he  had  purchased  an  estate. 

Pursuant  to  general  expectation,  the  annexation  of  Texas  to  the  United  States, 
in  1845,  caused  a  rupture  with  Mexico,  and  hostilities  were  threatened.  Gen- 
eral Taylor  was  ordered  to  take  post  in  Texas,  toward  the  Mexican  frontier,  and 
in  August,  he  concentrated  his  troops,  as  an  Army  of  Observation,  at  Corpus 
Christi.  The  following  Spring  he  crossed  the  Colorado  with  about  four  thousand 
regular  troops,  and  approached  the  Rio  Grande.  On  the  8th  and  9th  of  May  he 
gained  those  brilliant  victories  at  Palo  Alto  and  Resaca  de  la  Palma,  which  gave 
him  imperishable  renown  as  a  military  leader.  Late  in  September  following,  he 
gained  another  great  victory  at  Monterey,  in  Mexico ;  and  on  the  23d  of  February, 
1847,  at  the  head  of  only  six  thousand  men,  mostly  volunteers,  he  achieved  a 
great  victory  at  Buena  Vista,  over  Santa  Anna,  with  an  army  of  twenty  thousand 
Mexicans.  In  all  of  his  movements,  from  the  first  blow  at  Palo  Alto  until  the 
last  one  at  Buena  Vista,  Taylor  displayed  the  highest  order  of  generalship,  the 
most  daring  intrepidity,  and  the  most  unwavering  courage.  On  his  return  home, 
he  was  everywhere  greeted  with  the  wildest  enthusiasm;  and,  in  1848,  the 


SILAS  WRIGHT.  355 


Whig  party,  governed  by  the  applauding  voice  of  the  nation,  regarded  him  as 
eminently  "  available,"  and  nominated  him  for  the  office  of  President  of  the 
United  States.  In  the  Autumn  of  that  year,  he  was  elected  by  a  very  large 
majority,  and  was  inaugurated  chief  magistrate  of  the  Republic  on  the  4th  of 
March  following.  The  cares,  the  duties,  the  personal  inaction  incident  to  his 
station,  bore  heavily  upon  him ;  and  when  disease  appeared,  these  aggravated 
it.  After  holding  the  reins  of  the  Federal  government  for  sixteen  months,  death 
came  to  the  presidential  mansion,  and  on  the  9th  of  July,  1850,  the  brave  hero 
died,  at  the  age  of  sixty-five  years.  He  was  the  second  chief  magistrate  who 
had  died  while  in  office,  and  was  succeeded  by  the  Yice-President,  Millard 
Pillmore. 


SILAS    WIUQHT. 

THE  origin  and  career  of  Silas  Wright,  presents  a  striking  illustration  of  the 
fact  that,  under  the  fostering  care  of  our  free  institutions,  genius  may  lift 
its  possessor  to  the  pinnacle  of  fame  and  fortune,  without  the  factitious  aids  of 
wealth  and  power  which  too  frequently  stand  sponsors  at  the  baptism  of  great 
men,  so  called,  in  the  elder  world.  Silas  Wright  was  born  at  Amherst,  Massa- 
chusetts, on  the  24th  of  May,  1795,  and  while  he  was  an  infant,  his  parents  settled 
in  Weybridge,  Vermont.  There  he  received  his  early  education,  entered  Mid- 
dlebury  College,  as  a  student,  at  a  proper  age,  and  was  graduated  in  1815. 
While  yet  a  student,  his  active  mind  grasped  the  subject  of  politics.  War  with 
Great  Britain  was  then  progressing,  and  young  Wright  became  quite  distinguished 
as  a  democratic  politician,  in  Middlebury.  After  leaving  college,  he  studied  law 
at  Sandy  Hill,  New  York,  and  commenced  its  practice,  in  1819.  The  same  year 
he  was  induced  to  settle  at  Canton,  New  York,  and  there  he  lived  the  remainder 
of  his  days,  except  when  absent  on  public  duty.  His  superior  abilities  were 
soon  manifested,  and  he  was  successively  chosen  to  fill  several  local  offices.  He 
also  took  pride  in  military  matters,  and  rose  to  the  rank  of  brigadier-general  of 
militia.  As  a  magistrate,  he  always  endeavored  to  allay  feuds  and  keep  the 
people  from  litigation ;  and  as  a  lawyer,  he  conscientiously  pursued  the  same 
course. 

In  1823,  he  was  elected  to  the  State  Senate,  from  St.  Lawrence  county,  that 
district  then  embracing  that  and  eight  others  of  the  sparsely-settled  counties  of 
Northern  New  York.1  He  soon  became  a  distinguished  member  of  the  Senate, 
as  a  sound  logician,  fluent  speaker,  and  industrious  laborer  in  the  public  cause.2 
He  remained  there  about  three  years,  when  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  Congress, 
in  1826.  There  he  took  an  active  part  in  the  discussions  concerning  a  tariff,  and 
cognate  measures.  At  the  next  election  he  was  a  candidate  for  Congress,  but 
the  omission  of  the  word  junior,  in  printing  his  name  on  the  tickets,  caused  his 
defeat.  In  1829,  he  was  appointed  comptroller  of  the  State  of  New  York,  and 
was  reflected  to  the  same  office,  by  the  legislature,  in  1832.  The  following 
year  that  body  chose  him  to  represent  New  York  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  which  position  he  occupied  with  great  honor  to  himself  and  his  country 
until  he  was  elected  governor  of  that  State,  in  1844.  The  nomination  for  the 

1.  Saratoga,  Montgomery,  Hamilton,  Washington,  Warren,  Clinton,  Essex,  and  Franklin. 

2.  It  is  said  that  on  one  occasion,  while  a  member  of  the  Senate,  he  was  indirectly  offered  the  sum  of 
fifty  thousand  dollars,  if  he  would  feign  sickness  the  next  day,  be  absent  from  his  seat,  and  not  oppose, 
with  his  great  influence,  a  bill  for  chartering  certain  banks.     He  spurned  the  bribe  with  honest  indigna- 
tion, and  he  was  so  much  agitated  by  the  occurrence  during  that  night,  that  he  came  very  near  being 
absent  from  his  seat  the  next  day.  on  account  of  real  illness. 


356  JESSE   BUEL. 


office  of  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  was  tendered  to  him  by  a  national 
convention,  the  same  year,  but  was  declined.  Two  years  before  he  had  declined 
a  nomination  for  governor,  and  also  the  appointment  of  judge  of  the  Supremo 
Court  of  the  United  States.  Governor  Wright  was  again  nominated  for  chief 
magistrate  of  his  adopted  State,  in  1846,  but  lost  his  election.  At  the  close  of 
his  official  term  he  retired  to  private  life,  followed  by  the  grateful  appreciation 
of  his  countrymen.  There  he  seemed  to  be  gathering  strength  for  greater  and 
more  brilliant  achievements  in  the  field  of  statesmanship,  to  which  his  countrymen 
desired  to  invite  him,  when  death  came  suddenly,  and  laid  him  in  the  grave. 
He  had  consented  to  deliver  the  annual  address  at  the  State  Agricultural  Fair, 
to  be  held  at  Saratoga  Springs.  "While  preparing  for  that  service,  he  was  at- 
tacked by  acute  disease,  and  expired  within  two  hours  afterward.  That  event 
occurred  on  the  27th  of  August,  1847,  when  he  was  a  little  more  than  fifty -two 
years  of  age.  The  people  of  St.  Lawrence  county  have  erected  a  beautiful 
monument  over  his  grave  at  Canton,  composed  of  pure  white  marble,  from  the 
Dorset  quarry.  The  citizens  of  Weybridge,  where  he  spent  his  earlier  years, 
have  also  erected  a  monument  to  his  memory.  It  is  a  shaft  of  white  marble, 
about  thirty-eight  feet  in  height,  standing  upon  a  pedestal. 


JESSE    BUEI,. 

TT  has  been  justly  said  of  Jesse  Buel,  one  of  the  most  eminent  patrons  of  Agricul- 
1  ture,  in  this  country,  that  "in  example  not  less  than  in  precept,  he  may  be 
said  to  have  conferred  blessings  upon  the  times  in  which  he  lived — blessings  that 
will  continue  to  fructify,  and  ripen  into  fruit,  long  after  his  body  shall  have  mingled 
with  his  favorite  earth."  Mr.  Buel  was  a  native  of  Coventry,  Connecticut,  whero 
he  was  born  on  the  4th  of  January,  1778,  and  was  the  youngest  of  fourteen  chil- 
dren of  the  same  mother.  When  Jesse  was  twelve  years  of  age,  his  father  made 
Rutland,  Vermont,  his  residence ;  and  there,  two  years  afterward,  the  lad,  at  his 
own  urgent  request,  was  apprenticed  to  a  printer.  At  the  age  of  eighteen  years 
he  purchased  from  his  employer,  the  unexpired  term  of  his  apprenticeship,  worked 
as  a  journeyman  first  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  then  in  Lansingburg  and 
Waterford,  and,  in  1797,  commenced  the  publication  of  a  political  newspaper  at 
Troy.  He  married  in  1801,  made  Poughkeepsie,  in  Dutchess  county,  his  res- 
idence, and  established  a  newspaper  there.  It  was  an  unsuccessful  enterprise, 
and  Mr.  Buel  lost  sufficient  by  it  to  make  him  a  bankrupt.  He  left  the  scene  of 
his  disaster,  went  to  Kingston,  in  Ulster  county,  and  there,  in  1803,  he  estab- 
lished a  weekly  paper,  and  continued  it  for  ten  years.  Success  attended  him 
there.  His  daily  life  was  marked  by  great  diligence  in  business,  and  upright- 
ness in  conduct.  He  obtained  and  deserved  the  public  confidence,  and.  for 
awhile,  filled  the  office  of  judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  of  Ulster  county. 
In  1813,  Judge  Buel  removed  to  Albany.  He  had  accumulated  some  prop- 
erty, bore  a  high  reputation,  and  with  this  capital,  at  the  urgent  solicitation  of 
Judge  Spencer  and  others,  he  assumed  the  editorial  management  of  the  Albany 
Argus.  The  following  year  he  received  the  appointment  of  State  printer,  and 
held  that  lucrative  office  until  1820,  when  he  sold  out  his  interest  in  the  Argus, 
disposed  of  his  printing  establishment,  and  upon  a  small  farm  near  Albany  com- 
menced his  eminent  career  as  a  practical  agriculturist.  There,  for  nineteen  years, 
he  was  engaged  in  those  experiments  in  Agriculture  and  Horticulture  which  have 
rendered  his  name  famous  throughout  our  Union,  and  in  Europe.  Desirous  of  in- 


OSCEOLA.  357 


ducing  others  to  adopt  his  improvements,  he  commenced  the  publication  of  the  Cul- 
tivator, in  1834,  under  the  auspices  of  the  New  York  State  Agricultural  Society, 
and  conducted  it  with  great  ability  and  success,  until  his  death.  In  addition  to  his 
contributions  to  that  paper,  he  wrote  and  delivered  many  addresses  before  agri- 
cultural societies  in  his  own  State  and  elsewhere ;  and  associations  of  cultivators 
delighted  to  honor  him  with  tokens  of  their  esteem.  He  was  chosen  honorary 
member  of  the  Lower  Canada  Agricultural  Society;  the  London  Horticultural 
Society;  the  Royal  and  Central  Society  of  Agriculture  at  Paris,  and  of  the  Society 
of  Universal  Statistics  in  the  same  city.  For  several  years,  at  intervals,  Judge 
Buel  was  a  member  of  the  New  York  legislature;  and,  in  1836,  he  was  an  un- 
successful candidate  for  the  office  of  governor  of  the  State.  At  the  time  of  his 
death  he  was  one  of  the  regents  of  the  University.  His  final  departure  occurred 
at  Danbury,  Connecticut,  on  the  6th  of  October,  1839,  when  he  was  in  the  sixty- 
second  year  of  his  age.  He  was  then  on  a  journey  to  New  Haven,  to  address 
an  Agricultural  Society  there,  when  death  suddenly  prostrated  him. 


OSCEOLA. 

FADING-,  fading,  fading  1     Such  is  the  doom  of  the  Aborigines  of  our  Continent. 
Civilization  is  to  them  like  the  sunbeams  upon  snow  or  hoar-frost.     They 
are  fast  melting  in  its  presence ;  and  the  burden  of  many  a  sad  heart  among  the 
tribes  is  expressed  in  the  touching  lines  of  Schoolcraft — 

I  will  go  to  my  tent  and  lie  down  in  despair  ; 

I  will  paint  me  with  black  and  will  sever  my  hair  ; 

I  will  sit  on  the  shore  when  the  hurricane  blows, 

And  reveal  to  the  God  of  the  Tempest,  my  woes. 

I  will  weep  for  a  season,  on  bitterness  fed. 

For  my  kindred  are  gone  to  the  hills  of  the  dead ; 

But  they  died  not  of  hunger,  or  ling'ring  decay — 

The  hand  of  the  white  man  hath  swept  them  away  !'' 

From  time  to  time,  some  daring  spirit,  bolder  than  his  fellows,  and  fired  with 
patriotic  zeal  and  burning  hatred,  like  Philip  or  Pontiac,  have,  in  more  recent  times, 
made  desperate  efforts  to  retain  the  land  of  their  fathers  when  the  hand  of  the 
white  man  had  grasped  it.  Among  the  latest  of  these  gallant  men  was  Osceola, 
a  brave  chief  of  the  Seminoles.  His  people  yet  remain  on  their  ancient  domain, 
the  everglades  of  Florida.  They  were  a  remnant  of  the  once  powerful  Creek 
Confederacy ;  and  while  other  tribes  were  emigrating  to  the  wilderness  beyond 
the  Mississippi,  they  pertinaciously  clung  to  the  graves  and  the  hunting-grounds 
of  their  ancestors.  A  treaty  made  by  some  of  the  chief  men,  which  provided 
for  their  removal  beyond  the  Father  of  Waters,  was  repudiated  by  the  nation. 
Micanopy,  as  its  representative,  declared  that  the  Indians  had  been  deceived, 
and  refused  to  go.  The  government  of  the  United  States  resolved  to  remove 
them  by  force.  A  long  and  cruel  war  was  kindled,  in  1835;  and  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  contest,  a  young  chief  of  powerful  frame,  noble  bearing,  and  keen 
sagacity,  appeared  as  leader  of  the  warriors.  It  was  Osceola.  By  common 
consent  the  Seminoles  regarded  him  as  their  general-in-chief  and  destined  liber- 
ator. With  all  the  cunning  of  a  Tecumseh  and  bravery  of  a  Philip,  he  was  so 
successful  in  stratagem,  skilful  in  manoeuvres,  and  gallant  in  conflict,  that  he 
baffled  the  efforts  of  the  United  States'  troops  sent  against  him,  for  a  long  time. 
For  more  than  two  years  the  war  was  prosecuted  vigorously  amid  the  swamps 
of  the  great  Southern  Peninsula,  and  a  vast  amount  of  blood  and  treasure  was 
wasted  in  vain  attempts  to  subdue  the  Indians.  Some  of  the  most  accomplished 


358  WILLIAM   C.  C.  CLAIBORNE. 

commanders  in  the  army  of  the  Republic — Scott,  Taylor,  Gaines,  and  Jesup — 
were  there,  but  Osceola,  in  his  way,  out-generalled  them  all.  At  last  he  was 
subdued  by  treachery.  He  was  invited  to  a  conference  in  the  camp  of  General 
Jesup,  under  the  protection  of  a  flag.  Several  chiefs,  and  about  seventy  war- 
riors, accompanied  him;  and  when  they  supposed  themselves  safe  under  the 
pledges  of  the  white  man's  honor  and  the  sacred  flag,  they  were  seized  and  con- 
fined. Osceola  was  sent  in  irons  to  Charleston,  and  immured  in  Fort  Moultrie. 
This  act  of  treachery  was  defended  by  General  Jesup  by  the  plea  of  Osceola's 
known  infidelity  to  solemn  promises,  and  a  desire  to  put  an  end  to  blood-shed 
by  whatever  means  he  might  be  able  to  employ.  It  was  the  logic  of  mercy 
enforced  by  dishonor. 

The  misfortune  of  Osceola  was  too  great,  even  for  his  mighty  spirit.  That 
spirit,  chafed  like  a  leashed  tiger,  would  not  bend  until  the  physical  frame  of  the 
chief  gave  way,  and  a  fatal  fever  seized  it.  Gradually  the  stern  warrior  assumed 
the  weakness  of  a  little  child  $  and  on  the  31st  of  January,  1839,  Osceola  died  in 
his  military  prison.  Since  then  a  small  monument  to  his  memory  has  been 
erected  near  the  entrance-gate  to  Port  Moultrie.1  His  capture  and  death  was 
the  severest  blow  yet  felt  by  the  Seminoles.  The  spirit  of  the  nation  was  broken, 
yet  they  fought  on  with  desperation.  They  did  not  finally  yield  until  1842.  A 
remnant  yet  [1855]  inhabit  the  everglades  of  Florida.  They  are  quiet  but 
defiant. 


WILLIAM    C.    C.    CLAIBORNE. 

WHEN",  early  in  the  year  1804,  intelligence  reached  the  government  of  the 
United  States,  that  the  broad  and  beautiful  territory  of  Louisiana  had 
become  a  part  of  the  Republic  by  actual  cession,  and  the  importance  of  appoint- 
ing an  extremely  judicious  man  to  govern  the  mixed  population  of  Spaniards, 
Frenchmen,  and  Negroes,  was  palpable,  President  Jefferson,  to  the  astonishment 
of  many  old  and  wise  heads,  sent  thither  a  handsome  young  man  of  niue-and- 
twenty  years,  a  descendant  of  one  of  the  earliest  settlers  in  Virginia.  That 
young  man  was  William  Charles  Cole  Claiborne,  who  was  born  in  1775.  He 
was  nursed  in  the  bosom  of  patriotic  sentiment,  and  grew  to  manhood  in  the 
atmosphere  of  noble  efforts  in  the  founding  of  a  new  and  glorious  empire.  He 
was  a  student  in  William  and  Mary  College,  for  a  while,  but  completed  his  edu- 
cation at  an  academy  in  Richmond.  He  inherited  nothing  but  a  good  education 
and  excellent  character,  and  with  these  he  entered  upon  the  battle  of  life,  con- 
fident of  victories.  With  a  determination  to  help  himself,  he  went  to  New  York, 
and  sought  employment  under  Mr.  Beckley  (with  whom  he  was  acquainted), 
then  clerk  to  the  Federal  House  of  Representatives.  He  succeeded,  and  at  the 
age  of  sixteen  years  the  accomplished  and  resolute  boy  ate  bread  earned  by  his 
own  industry.  He  became  perfect  master  of  the  French  language,  and  was  very 
useful  to  his  employer,  in  many  ways.  His  talent  and  sprightliness  attracted 
the  attention  of  Jefferson,  then  Washington's  Secretary  of  State,  and  that  states- 
man gave  the  youthful  Claiborne  many  of  the  encouragements  which  young  men 
need.  From  General  John  Sevier,  then  a  member  of  Congress,  he  received 
many  kind  attentions,  and  his  young  ambition  grew  apace.  The  profession  of 
the  law  opened  a  high  road  to  distinction,  and  he  left  New  York,  studied  Black- 
stone,  in  Richmond,  for  three  months,  was  then  admitted  to  practice,  and,  bid- 

1.  See  sketch  of  General  Moultrie.     The  present  fortress,  near  the  site  of  the  palmetto  fort  of  the  Revo- 
lution, is  a  strong,  regular  work  ;  one  of  the  finest  belonging  to  the  United  States. 


WILLIAM   C.  C.  CLAIBORNE. 


359 


ding  adieu  to  the  charms  of  society  in  the  East,  he  went  over  the  mountains, 
and  established  himself  in  the  present  Sullivan  county,  Tennessee.  In  eloquence, 
he  exceeded  every  man  west  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  and  in  less  than  two  years,  he 
was  at  the  head  of  his  profession,  and  was  called  hundreds  of  miles  to  manage 
law-suits.  A  yearning  for  home  took  possession  of  his  feelings,  and  he  was  about 
to  return  to  Richmond,  when  Tennessee  prepared  to  enter  the  Union  as  a  sover- 
eign State,  and  Claiborne  was  chosen  a  member  of  a  convention  to  form  a  con- 
stitution. In  that  convention  he  began  his  political  career ;  and  he  was  regarded 
by  all  as  a  prodigy,  for  he  was  then  only  about  twenty-one  years  of  age.  His 
friend,  Sevier,  was  elected  governor  of  the  new  State.  One  of  his  first  acts  was 
the  appointment  of  young  Claiborne  as  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  law  and 
equity,  of  the  budding  commonwealth.  He  was  not  yet  twenty-two  years  of 
age,  yet  he  entered  upon  his  duties  with  all  the  gravity  and  legal  wisdom  of 
many  jurists  of  fifty.  The  ermine  did  not  rest  long  upon  his  shoulders,  for  the 
people,  by  an  immense  majority,  elected  him  their  representative  in  Congress. 
He  was  again  triumphantly  reflected,  and  there  he  repaid  the  kindness  he  had 
received  from  Mr.  Jefferson,  by  giving  him  his  vote  for  President  of  the  United 
States.  In  that  Congress  Claiborne  greatly  distinguished  himself  by  his  learning, 
logic,  and  eloquence. 

Soon  after  President  Jefferson's  accession,  he  appointed  Mr.  Claiborne  govern- 
or of  the  Mississippi  Territory,  on  the  request  of  the  people  there ;  and  on  the 
23d  of  November,  1801,  he  was  enthusiastically  received  at  Natchez,  the  seat  of 


360  JAMES   MILNOK. 


government.  He  found  society  heaving  with  the  turbulence  of  faction ;  he  poured 
the  oil  of  conciliation  upon  the  billows,  and  they  soon  became  calm.  He  mar- 
ried a  beautiful  and  wealthy  girl  in  Nashville,  and  passed  the  two  years  that  he 
was  governor  of  Mississippi,  in  the  greatest  happiness.  His  duties  of  governor 
of  Louisiana,  to  which  office  he  was  appointed  early  in  1804,  were  more  arduous 
and  perplexing,  yet  he  performed  them  with  signal  ability  and  success.  His 
justice  and  urbanity  endeared  him  to  all  classes;  and  when,  in  1812,  Louisiana 
became  an  independent  State,  the  people  chose  him  for  their  governor,  by  an 
almost  unanimous  vote.  He  was  in  the  executive  chair  during  the  memorable 
invasion  of  the  British,  and  their  repulse  at  New  Orleans  by  General  Jackson, 
early  in  1815.  On  that  occasion  Governor  Claiborne  wisely  and  generously  sur- 
rendered to  Jackson  all  power  and  command,  and,  under  that  general's  orders, 
the  magistrate  led  a  large  body  of  the  militia  of  his  State.  His  long  career  as 
governor  of  Louisiana  terminated  in  1817,  when  he  was  chosen  to  represent  that 
State  in  the  Federal  Senate.  But  his  useful  life  closed  too  soon  to  allow  him  to 
serve  his  countrymen  any  more.  He  died  of  a  disease  of  the  liver,  in  the  city 
of  New  Orleans,  on  the  23d  of  November,  1817,  in  the  forty-second  year  of  his 
age.  The  municipal  authorities  decreed  a  public  funeral,  and  money  was  ap- 
priated  to  erect  a  marble  monument  to  his  memory. 


JAMES    MILNOR. 

IT  has  been  the  privilege  of  few  men,  who  have  passed  their  lives  in  public 
labors,  to  be  so  warmly,  tenderly,  and  universally  loved,  as  the  Rev.  James 
Milnor,  D.  D.,  the  rector  of  St.  George's  Church,  New  York,  for  almost  thirty 
years.  And  it  has  been  the  privilege  of  very  few  men  to  be  so  eminently  use- 
ful as  he  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  well-being  of  his  fellow  creatures.  In  the 
domestic  circle,  he  was  reverenced  for  his  unalloyed  goodness ;  in  the  legal  pro- 
fession he  was  called  "the  honest  lawyer";  as  a  legislator  he  was  beneficent 
and  patriotic ;  as  a  Christian  he  was  without  guile ;  and  in  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church,  he  was  one  of  the  most  prominent  of  all  her  evangelical  clergy, 
yet  in  nothing  wanting  as  one  of  her  most  loyal  sons. 

James  Milnor  was  the  son  of  Quaker  parents,  and  was  born  in  Philadelphia 
on  the  20th  of  June,  1773.  He  was  educated  partly  in  the  Philadelphia  Acade- 
my, and  partly  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  To  relieve  his  father  of 
heavy  expenses  on  his  account,  James  left  the  University  before  taking  his  de- 
gree, and  at  the  age  of  about  sixteen  years,  commenced  the  study  of  law.  Ho 
was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1794,  before  he  was  quite  twenty -one  years  of  ago, 
and  commenced  practice  in  Norristown.  There,  among  a  preponderating  Ger- 
man population,  he  was  very  successful,  he  having  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the 
language  at  an  early  age.  After  remaining  there  about  three  years,  he  returned 
to  Philadelphia,  and,  in  1799,  married  the  lady  who  yet  [1855]  survives  him. 
That  ceremony  having  been  performed  by  "a  hireling  priest,"  (the  bride  was  an 
Episcopalian,  by  education)  contrary  to  the  discipline  of  Friends,  Mr.  Milnor 
was  disowned,  and  his  membership  in  the  Society  ceased  forever. 

In  the  year  1800,  Mr.  Milnor  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  city  council.  He 
held  the  same  position  from  1805  until  1809  ;  and  during  the  latter  year,  he  was 
its  President.  He  was  extremely  popular  among  all  classes;  and  in  1810,  ho 
was  elected  to  a  seat  in  Congress  by  the  Federal  vote  in  his  district.  There  he 
remained  until  the  Spring  of  1813,  and  was  a  steady  and  consistent  opponent 
of  the  war,  and  the  belligerent  measures  of  the  Administration.  He  took  a 


JAMES   MILNOR.  361 


prominent  part  in  the  debates;  and  on  account  of  a  report  of  one  of  his  speeches, 
which  appeared  in  a  Philadelphia  paper,  Henry  Clay,  then  Speaker  of  the 
House,  challenged  him  to  fight  a  duel.  Mr.  Milnor  bravely  refused,  first  be- 
cause Mr.  Clay  had  no  right  to  call  him  to  account  for  his  public  acts,  and 
secondly  because  he  was  opposed,  in  principle,  to  the  cowardly  practice  of  duel- 
ling. There  the  matter  ended,  and  in  after  years,  when  Mr.  Milnor  was  an 
eminent  minister  of  the  Gospel,  he  and  the  great  statesman  met  on  the  most 
friendly  terms. 

It  was  during  his  Congressional  career,  that  religious  truths  were  pressed 
with  greatest  force  upon  his  attention.  He  had  been  careless  for  many  years ; 
then  he  Stood  wavering  between  the  doctrine  of  universal  salvation  and  the 
orthodoxy  of  the  day,  but  when  his  term  of  service  in  the  national  council  had 
ended,  his  mind  fully  comprehended  those  great  truths  which  he  afterward  so 
eloquently  proclaimed,  and  he  abandoned  the  legal  profession  and  prepared  for 
entrance  upon  the  Gospel  ministry.1  He  was  admitted  to  the  communion  by 
Bishop  White,  and  was  ordained  a  deacon  by  that  excellent  prelate,  in  August, 
1814.  Twelve  months  afterward  he  was  ordained  a  presbyter,  and  labored  for 
about  a  year  as  an  assistant  minister  in  the  Associated  Churches,  in  Philadel- 
phia. In  1816,  he  was  called  to  the  rectorship  of  St.  George's  Church,  in  New 
York,  and  commenced  his  long  and  useful  labors  there  in  September  of  that 
year.  The  Bishop  of  the  diocese  (Hobart)  had  been  his  play-fellow  in  boyhood, 
and  Mr.  Milnor  anticipated  pleasant  pastoral  relations  with  him.  These  antici- 
pations were  not  realized.  The  rector  of  St.  George's  would  indulge  his  heart 
and  lips  in  the  utterance  of  extemporaneous  prayer  at  occasional  religious  meet- 
ings, and  he  also  joined  heartily  with  other  denominations  of  Christians,  im- 
mediately after  his  arrival  in  New  York,  in  the  formation  of  the  Bible  Society; 
and  during  the  remainder  of  his  life  he  was  continually  associated  with  disciples 
of  every  name,  in  other  works  of  Christian  benevolence.  These  were  grave  of- 
fences in  the  eyes  of  the  Bishop,  and  a  harmony  of  views,  on  these  subjects, 
never  existed  between  the  prelate  and  the  presbyter.2 

Dr.  Milnor  was  extremely  active  in  the  promotion  of  schemes  of  Christian 
benevolence.  He  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  American  Tract  Society,  in 
1824,  and  continued  to  be  one  of  its  most  active  members  until  his  death.  The 
Institution  for  the  Deaf  and  Dumb ;  the  Orphan  Asylum ;  the  Home  for  aged 
indigent  Females,  and  many  kindred  institutions,  felt  his  fostering  care.  In 
1830  he  went  to  England  as  a  delegate  of  the  American  Bible  Society  to  the 
British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society ;  and  ever  afterward  his  visit  there  was  re- 
ferred to  with  the  greatest  pleasure  by  all  who  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  his  com- 
pany and  ministrations.  He  visited  Paris,  then  the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  then 
made  a  general  tour  through  England,  Wales,  Scotland  and  Ireland,  everywhere 
engaged  in  the  duties  of  a  Christian  minister,  and  human  benefactor.  He  re- 
turned home  in  the  Autumn  of  the  same  year,  bringing  with  him  a  vast  amount 
of  useful  information  for  the  various  associations  with  which  he  was  connected. 
In  the  excitements  produced  by  Tractarianism,  he  was  bold  in  the  maintenance 
of  evangelical  truth,  yet  always  kind  and  conciliatory.  He  labored  on  zeal- 
ously until  the  Spring  of  1845,  when  he  was  summoned  away  suddenly  by  a 

1  On  one  of  his  visits  home,  during  his  term  in  Congress,  his  little  daughter,  Anna,  met  him  as  he  en- 
tered the  house,  and  said,  "Papa,  do  you  know  I  can  read?"     "No,  let  me  hear  you,"  he  replied. 
She  selected  the  words,  "  Thou  shall  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart."    This  incident  made  a, 
great  impression  on  his  mind. 

2  Bishop  Hobart  objected  to  the  prayer  meetings,  which  the  members  of  St.  George's  Church  were  in 
the  habit  of  holding,  and  which  Dr.  Milnor  warmly  encouraged,  though  he  did  not  always  attend  them. 
On  one  of  those  evenings,  the  Bishop  was  in  the  rectory,  and  requested  Dr.  Milnor  to  go  and  dismiss  tho 
assembly.     "  Bishop,"  he  said  firmly,  "  I  dare  not  prevent  my  parishioners  from  meeting  for  prayer  ; 
but  if  you  are  willing  to  take  the  responsibility  of  dismissing  them,  you  have  my  permission."     The 
praying  members  remained  undisturbed. 

16 


362  RETURN  JONATHAN   MEIGS. 

disease  which  had  twice  brought  him  to  death's  door.  On  the  evening  of  the 
8th  of  April,  1845,  a  meeting  of  the  Directors  of  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  Institu- 
tion was  held  at  his  study.  Five  hours  afterward  his  spirit  was  in  the  imme- 
diate presence  of  his  divine  Master. 


RETURN    JONATHAN    MEIGS. 

4  BRIGHT-EYED  Connecticut  girl  was  disposed  to  coquette  with  her  lover, 
•1\  Jonathan  Meigs ;  and  on  one  occasion,  when  he  had  pressed  his  suit  with 
great  earnestness,  and  asked  for  a  positive  answer,  she  feigned  coolness,  and 
would  give  him  no  satisfaction.  The  lover  resolved  to  be  trifled  with  no  longer, 
and  bade  her  farewell,  for  ever.  She  perceived  her  error,  but  he  was  allowed 
to  go  far  down  the  lane  before  her  pride  would  yield  to  the  more  tender  emotions 
of  her  heart.  Then  she  ran  to  the  gate  and  cried,  "  Return,  Jonathan  1  Return, 
Jonathan  1"  He  did  return,  they  were  joined  in  wedlock,  and  in  commemoration 
of  these  happy  words  of  the  sorrowing  girl,  they  named  their  first  child,  Return 
Jonathan.  That  child,  afterward  a  hero  in  our  War  for  Independence,  a  noble 
"Western  pioneer,  and  a  devoted  friend  of  the  Cherokees,  was  born  at  Middletown, 
Connecticut,  in  December,  1740.  He  received  a  good  common  education,  and 
learned  the  trade  of  a  hatter.  Of  his  earlier  life  we  have  no  important  informa- 
tion ;  and  he  first  appears  in  public  at  the  opening  of  the  Revolution.  He  was 
then  thirty-five  years  of  age ;  and  one  of  the  companies  of  minute-men,  in  his 
native  town,  had  chosen  him  their  captain.  "When  intelligence  of  bloodshed  at 
Lexington  reached  him,  he  marched  his  company  to  Cambridge,  and  soon  re- 
ceived the  appointment  of  major,  from  Governor  Trumbull.  In  the  ensuing 
Autumn,  he  accompanied  Arnold  in  his  memorable  expedition  from  the  Kenne- 
bec  to  the  St.  Lawrence.  He  participated  in  the  attack  on  Quebec,  at  the  close 
of  the  year,  and  was  made  a  prisoner  there.  His  fellow-captives  were  much  in- 
debted to  him  for  comforts  during  the  remainder  of  the  dreary  "Winter.  In  the 
course  of  the  following  year  he  was  exchanged,  and,  receiving  the  commission 
of  colonel  from  the  Continental  Congress,  he  raised  a  regiment  in  Connecticut, 
which  was  known  as  The  Leather-cap  Battalion.  With  a  part  of  his  force 
(seventy  in  number),  he  made  a  bold  attack  upon  the  British  post  at  Sag  Har- 
bor, east  end  of  Long  Island,  in  May,  1777,  where  he  destroyed  a  good  deal  of 
property,  and  carried  off  almost  a  hundred  prisoners,  without  losing  a  man. 
Congress  gave  him  thanks  and  an  elegant  sword,  for  that  exploit. 

In  the  capture  of  Stony  Point,  on  the  Hudson,  in  1779,  Colonel  Meigs  and  his 
regiment,  under  the  direction  of  General  Wayne,  performed  a  gallant  part.  He 
was  one  of  the  first  to  mount  the  parapet  and  enter  the  fort.  He  remained  in 
active  service  until  the  close  of  the  war,  and  then  sat  down  quietly  in  his  native 
town,  to  enjoy  the  honors  he  had  so  bravely  won.  His  knowledge  of  surveying, 
acquired  in  early  life,  was  now  called  into  practice.  He  was  appointed  one  of 
the  surveyors  of  the  Ohio  Land  Company,1  and  in  the  Spring  of  1778,  he  went 
over  the  mountains,  and  halted  at  Marietta,  the  head-quarters  of  emigrants  to 
that  region.  He  at  once  became  a  prominent  man  among  the  settlers ;  and  soon 
after  the  arrival  of  General  St.  Clair,  as  governor  of  the  newly-organized  North- 
western Territory,  Colonel  Meigs  was  appointed  one  of  the  judges  of  the  Court 
of  Quarter  Sessions.  He  was  also  appointed  clerk  of  the  same  court,  and  pro- 
thonotary  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas.  He  was  much  engaged  in  surveying, 
until  interrupted  by  the  Indian  war.  At  the  time  of  the  treaty  at  Greenville,  in 

1.  See  sketch  of  Rufus  Putnam. 


BENJAMIN  WEIGHT.  363 

1795,  Colonel  Meigs  was  commissary  of  clothing;  and  in  all  his  duties,  public 
and  private,  he  exhibited  such  a  kindly  heart,  perfect  justice,  and  unselfish 
benevolence,  that  he  won  the  esteem  of  the  white  people  and  the  Indians. 

In  1798,  Colonel  Meigs  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Territorial  legislature; 
and,  in  1801,  President  Jefferson  appointed  him  Indian  agent,  among  the  Cher- 
okees,  where  he  resided  until  his  death,  which  occurred  at  the  Cherokee  agency, 
on  the  28th  of  January,  1823,  at  the  age  of  eighty-three  years.  The  Indians 
with  whom  he  lived  so  long,  loved  and  revered  him  as  a  father.  Even  until  the 
last  week  of  his  life,  he  engaged  with  them  in  their  athletic  sports. 


BENJAMIN    WRIQHT. 

T^IIERE  is  an  unwritten,  early,  and  secret  history  of  the  great  Erie  Canal, 
-L  which,  if  brought  to  the  light  of  to-day,  would  give  to  men  a  title  to  true 
renown,  on  whom  eulogium  has  bestowed  only  a  passing  remark.  Among  these, 
the  names  of  Ilawley,  Brooks,  M'Neil,  Ellicott,  Watson,  Eddy,  and  Wright, 
would  appear  conspicuous.  The  latter  was  a  native  of  Weathersfield,  Connec- 
ticut, where  he  was  born  on  the  10th  of  October,  1770.  His  parents  were 
humble,  and  his  opportunities  for  early  education  were  very  limited.  At  the 
age  of  sixteen  years  he  went  to  live  with  an  uncle,  in  Litchfield  county,  where 
he  acquired  a  knowledge  of  surveying.  When  in  his  nineteenth  year,  he  ac- 
companied his  father  and  family  to  the  wilderness  of  central  New  York,  and 
settled  at  Fort  Stanwix,  now  Rome.  All  beyond  was  the  "  Indian  country." 
Settlers  were  locating  rapidly  in  that  region,  and  young  Wright  was  constantly  em- 
ployed in  surveying  lands.  Within  four  years  [1792-1796],  he  surveyed  over  five 
hundred  thousand  acres  of  land  in  the  counties  of  Oneida  and  Oswego.  His  fame 
for  speed  and  accuracy  in  his  occupation  became  wide  spread,  and  his  services 
were  constantly  sought,  in  all  directions.  He  was  employed  by  the  Western  In- 
land Lock  Navigation  Company,  in  their  efforts  to  connect  Lake  Ontario  and  the 
Hudson  river,  by  a  canal  between  Oneida  Lake  and  the  Mohawk.  He  became  the 
general  agent  of  the  proprietors  of  extensive  tracts  of  land,  in  that  region ;  and, 
in  1801,  and  again  in  1807,  ho  represented  the  district  in  the  State  legislature. 
During  the  latter  year,  Mr.  Wright,  Jesse  Hawley,  General  M'Neil,  and  Judge 
Forman,  discussed  the  feasibility  of  making  a  canal  through  the  Mohawk  Valley, 
and  westward,  so  as  to  connect  Lake  Erie  with  the  Hudson.  The  legislature, 
at  the  suggestion  of  Forman  and  Wright,  appropriated  six  hundred  dollars  for  a 
preliminary  survey.  It  was  accomplished;  and,  in  1810,  a  board  of  Canal  Com- 
missioners was  appointed.  Such  were  the  incipient  measures  which  led  to  a 
great  result.  Mr.  Wright  was  very  active,  until  operations  were  suspended  by 
the  war  with  Great  Britain.  They  were  resumed,  with  vigor,  in  1816,  when 
Judge  Geddes  and  Mr.  Wright  were  charged  with  the  construction  of  the  Erie 
Canal.  Under  their  direction  the  work  went  steadily  on,  until  1825,  when  the 
stupendous  undertaking  was  completed.1 

In  1814,  Mr.  Wright  was  appointed  one  of  the  judges  for  Oneida  county;  and 
during  the  remainder  of  his  life,  he  was  either  a  consulting  or  chief  engineer  in 
the  construction  of  almost  every  important  work  of  internal  improvement  through- 
out the  country.  In  1835,  he  went  to  Cuba,  by  invitation  of  the  authorities 
and  capitalists  there,  to  consult  respecting  a  railroad  from  Havana  to  the  in- 
terior of  the  island.  After  that  he  did  not  engage  much  in  active  life;  and  on 
the  24th  of  August,  1842,  he  died,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  when  in  the  seventy- 
second  year  of  his  age. 

1.  See  sketch  of  Dcwitt  Clinton. 


364 


ADONIKAM  JUDSON. 


ADONIRAM   JUDSON. 

IN  the  little  parlor  of  the  late  Professor  Stuart,  at  Andover,  Massachusetts,  on 
a  sultry  day  in  June,  1810,  a  few  grave  men  consulted  upon  the  expediency 
of  forming  a  Foreign  Missionary  Society.  A  few  pious  and  zealous  young  men, 
students  in  the  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  who  ardently  desired  employ- 
ment in  the  missionary  field  of  far-off  India,  had  urged  the  propriety  of  such  a 
measure.  That  consultation  was  favorable,  and  at  the  meeting  of  the  General 
Association,  the  following  day,  at  Bradford,  an  earnest  memorial  was  presented, 
signed  by  four  of  those  young  men.  The  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for 
Foreign  Missions,  was  then  established;1  and  in  February,  1812,  three  of  the 
signers  of  that  memorial  sailed  for  India,  the  pioneer  American  missionaries  to 
the  heathen  in  distant  lands.  The  three  were  Adoniram  Judson,  jr.  (author  of 
the  memorial),  Jamuel  Nott,  jr.,  and  Samuel  Newell. 

Adoniram  Judson  was  born  at  Maiden,  Massachusetts,  on  the  9th  of  August, 
1788.  His  father  was  a  Congregational  clergyman,  and  cultivated  the  mind  and 
heart  of  his  promising  boy  with  great  care.  He  was  graduated  with  highest 
honors  at  Brown  University,  in  1807,  and  after  lingering,  for  a  while,  in  great 
doubt  upon  the  borders  of  the  dank  marsh  of  infidelity,  the  light  of  Christian 


1.  The  followi 
Rev.  Timothy  D 
D.D.,  Rev.  Sam 
Walley. 


ing  gentlemen  composed  that  first  Board  :  John  Treadwell  (gov< 
•wight,  D.D.,  General  Jedediah  Huntington,  Rev.  Calvin  Chapin, 
luel  Spring,  D.D.,  William  Bartlett,  Rev.  Samuel  Worqester,  an 


irnor  of  Connecticut), 
Rev.  Joseph  Lyman, 
id  Deacon  Samuel  H. 


ADONIRAM  JUDSON. 


truth  beckoned  him  away  to  the  beautiful  land  of  gospel  blessings.  He  entered 
the  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  as  a  student.  There  he  experienced  a  desire 
to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  heathen,  and  was  about  to  offer  his  services  to  the 
London  Missionary  Society,  when,  after  much  effort,  the  formation  of  the  Amer- 
ican Board,  above  mentioned,  opened  the  way  for  him.  He  married  the  lovely 
Ann  Hasseltine,  early  in  February,  1812,  and,  on  the  19th  of  that  month,  sailed 
with  her  and  other  companions,  for  Calcutta.  They  reached  that  port  in  Juno 
following,  and  were  lodged,  for  a  short  time,  at  the  house  of  the  eminent  Baptist 
missionary,  Dr.  Carey,  at  Serampore.  Compelled  to  leave  the  British  East  Indies, 
they  fled  to  the  Isle  of  France,1  and  from  thence  went  to  Rangoon,  in  Burmah. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Judson  had  embraced  Dr.  Carey's  views  of  baptism,  were  immersed 
by  him,  and  were  afterward  sustained  by  the  Baptist  Board  of  Foreign  Missions, 
which  was  established  in  1814. 

At  Rangoon  the  missionaries  employed  themselves  diligently  in  studying  the 
Burmese  language,  and  in  otherwise  preparing  for  labor  in  the  great  missionary 
field  before  them.  They  translated  portions  of  Scripture  and  other  words  of  in- 
struction concerning  Christianity,  into  the  Burmese  language ;  and  the  first  fruit 
of  their  labors  appeared  in  March,  1817,  when  an  intelligent  native  came  to 
them  with  an  earnest  desire  for  spiritual  knowledge.  A  month  later,  Mr.  Jud- 
son was  allowed  to  preach  to  the  people,  publicly ;  and,  in  June  following,  the 
first  convert  was  baptized.  Then  the  heart  of  the  missionary  was  filled  with 
gladness,  for  he  saw  the  dawning  of  a  glorious  morning  for  the  pagans  of  Bur- 
mah. He  labored  on  hopefully,  and  now  and  then  a  disciple  would  appear.  Ho 
prepared  a  small  dictionary  and  a  grammar,  and  many  were  taught  but  few 
seemed  profited.  At  the  beginning  of  1820,  there  were  only  ten  converts,  yet 
these  were  prepared  to  be  each  at  the  head  of  a  cohort  of  disciples  in  after  years, 
if  Providence  should  call  them  to  act.  A  printing-press,  sent  from  Serampore, 
was  erected  at  Rangoon,  and  a  translation  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  and 
some  tracts,  were  printed  and  distributed  among  the  people.  In  the  sketch  of 
Mrs.  Judson,  events  from  this  period,  until  her  return  from  America,  and  the 
close  of  the  Burmese  war  with  the  English,  have  been  glanced  at,  and  need  not 
be  repeated  here.  After  that,  in  a  new  town  named  Amherst,  within  territory 
ceded  by  the  King  of  Ava  to  the  British,  Mr.  Judson  and  his  missionary  family 
resumed  their  labors,  in  1826.  There  Mrs.  Judson  died;  and  soon  afterward 
their  little  daughter  was  laid  by  her  side  under  the  hope-tree.  Eight  years 
afterward,  Mrs.  Sarah  Boardman,  the  widow  of  a  missionary,  became  Mr.  Jud- 
son's  wife,  and  they  labored  on  together  with  great  zeal,  at  Rangoon,  Amherst, 
and  Maulmain.  Dr.  Judson  had  then  just  completed  his  wonderful  task  of 
translating  the  Holy  Scriptures  into  the  Burmese  language.  He  was  also  em- 
ployed in  forming  a  complete  Burmese  and  English  Dictionary,  for  the  use  of 
those  who  desired  to  learn  the  language,  as  well  as  for  the  natives.  At  length 
the  health  of  his  second  wife  failed;  and,  in  1845,  Dr.  Judson  started  witli  her 
to  visit  his  native  land,  after  an  absence  of  two  and  thirty  years.  Bereavement 
smote  him  on  the  voyage.  In  the  harbor  of  St.  Helena,  his  excellent  wife  died, 
and  the  sorrowing  husband  left  her  body  upon  that  lonely  spot  in  the  ocean. 
He  reached  Boston,  with  his  children,  in  the  Autumn  of  1845.  and  was  every 
where  greeted  with  the  most  affectionate  reverence  by  Christians  of  every  name. 
He  remained  in  America  until  July,  the  following  year,  when  ho  departed  for  his 
chosen  field  of  labor  in  Burmah,  accompanied  by  a  third  wife,2  whom  he  had 
married  a  few  weeks  previously.  But  the  day  of  his  pilgrimage  was  drawing  to 
a  close.  The  tooth  of  disease  began  its  work  in  the  Autumn  of  1849,  and  in 

1.  See  sketch  of  Mrs.  Newell. 

2.  The  accomplished  Miss  Emily  Chubbuck,  better  known  in  the  literary  world  as  Fanny  Forester. 
She  and  Dr.  Judson  accidentally  me',  5u  Philadelphia,  and  were  soon  afterward  married. 


366  FELIX   GRUNDY. 


April  following,  he  sailed  for  the  isle  of  Bourbon,  for  the  benefit  of  his  health, 
leaving  his  wife  and  infants  at  Maulmain.  They  never  met  again  on  earth. 
Nine  days  after  he  left  them,  being  the  12th  of  April,  1850,  that  eminent  servant 
of  the  Most  High  expired  on  ship-board,  and  his  grave  was  made  in  the  depths 
of  the  Indian  Seas.  His  widow  returned  to  America,  and  died  in  the  arms  of 
her  mother,  at  Hamilton,  New  York,  on  the  1st  of  June,  1854. 


FELIX    ORUNDY. 

THE  Great  "West,  including  the  broad  valleys  between  the  Alleghany  Moun- 
tains and  the  Mississippi  River,  has  ever  been  remarkable,  since  its  redemp- 
tion from  the  wilderness  state,  for  its  redundancy  of  powerful  men,  physically 
and  intellectually.  The  free  air  and  the  virgin  soil ;  the  simple  aliment  and 
daily  dangers  of  that  region,  seemed  congenial  to  the  birth  and  growth  of  truo 
men.  Among  these,  Felix  Grundy,  a  distinguished  member  of  Congress,  was 
long  eminent.  He  was  born  in  Virginia,  but  nurtured  in  the  wilderness,  at  a 
time  when,  to  use  his  own  forcible  expression,  "death  was  in  almost  every  bush, 
and  when  every  thicket  concealed  an  ambuscade."  His  nativity  occurred  in 
Berkeley  county,  Virginia,  on  the  llth  of  September,  1777.  Three  years  later, 
his  father  went,  with  his  family,  to  Kentucky,  then  "  the  dark  and  bloody  ground." 
There  the  opportunities  for  education  were  small,  but  Felix  was  favored  above 
the  rest  of  his  family,  for,  being  the  seventh  son,  ho  was  destined,  according  to 
the  superstitious  notion  of  the  times,  to  become  a  physician.  His  father  died 
when  he  was  a  lad,  and  his  mother,  a  believer  in  omens,  had  him  educated  for 
the  purpose  of  preparing  for  the  medical  profession.  He  finished  his  studies 
under  Dr.  Priestly,  at  Bardstown,  Kentucky,  when,  preferring  law,  he  disregarded 
the  oracles,  and  prepared  himself  for  the  legal  profession,  under  the  charge  of 
Colonel  George  Nichols,  then  one  of  the  ablest  counsellors  west  of  the  moun- 
tains. 

Grundy  was  admitted  to  practice,  in  1798,  soon  rose  to  eminence,  and,  in 
1799,  was  dhosen  a  member  of  the  committee  called  to  revise  the  constitution  of 
Kentucky.  He  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  legislature,  the  same  year,  and 
served  in  that  body  with  distinction  until  1806,  when  he  was  appointed  one  of 
the  judges  of  Supreme  Court  of  Errors  and  Appeals.  Ho  was  soon  afterward 
appointed  chief  justice  of  Kentucky,  on  the  resignation  of  Judge  Todd.  The 
salary  was  insufficient  for  the  wants  of  a  growing  family,  and  he  resigned  the 
office,  in  1808,  and  removed  to  Nashville,  Tennessee,  where  he  prosecuted  his 
vocation  with  industry  and  great  success.  He  ranked  highest  among  the  crim- 
inal lawyers  of  the  West,  and  practiced  in  the  courts  of  several  of  the  States. 
His  eloquence  was  pure  and  forcible;  and  he  took  the  proud  position,  by  general 
consent,  as  the  head  of  the  Tennessee  bar. 

Mr.  Grundy  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Federal  Congress,  in  1811.  The  tem- 
pest of  war  was  then  brooding  in  the  horizon,  and  Mr.  Grundy  was  placed  upon 
the  Committee  of  Foreign  Relations — the  most  important  section  of  the  House, 
at  that  time.  He  remained  in  that  body  until  1814,  and  was  always  a  hearty, 
consistent,  and  sincere  supporter  of  the  administration  of  President  Madison. 
At  the  close  of  the  contest  he  returned  to  Nashville,  and  resumed  the  practice 
of  his  profession,  but  was  soon  called  to  duty  in  the  State  legislature,  where  he 
served  for  six  years.  In  1829,  he  was  elected  a  Federal  Senator,  and  by  reelec- 
tion he  held  a  seat  there  during  the  whole  eight  years  of  Jackson's  administra- 
tion. From  first  to  last,  he  was  that  chief  magistrate's  firm  and  cordial  adherent 


RICHARD   M.  JOHNSON.  367 

and  supporter.  In  1839,  he  was  called  to  the  cabinet  of  Mr.  Yan  Burcn,  as 
attorney-general  of  the  United  States;  and,  in  1840,  he  was  again  elected  to  a 
seat  in  the  Federal  Senate.  He  was  not  permitted  to  occupy  that  exalted  posi- 
tion again,  for,  in  December  following,  at  about  the  time  when  he  would  have 
presented  his  credentials  there,  death  removed  him  to  another  sphere.  He  was 
then  a  little  more  than  sixty -three  years  of  age. 


RICHARD    M.   JOHNSON. 

TT'ENTUCKY  is  justly  proud  of  her  noble  son,  Richard  M.  Johnson;  and 
IV  throughout  the  Union  his  memory  is  cherished  as  one  of  the  most  enlight- 
ened, industrious,  and  honest  of  the  servants  of  the  Republic,  whose  zeal  and 
valor  have  been  tried  in  the  legislative  council  and  on  the  field  of  battle.  That 
distinguished  man  was  born  at  Bryant's  station,1  five  miles  north-east  of  Lexing- 
ton, Kentucky,  on  the  17th  of  October,  1781.  He  received  very  little  instruc- 
tion from  books  during  boyhood,  but  at  the  age  of  fifteen  years  he  acquired  the 
rudiments  of  the  Latin  language.  He  then  entered  Transylvania  University,  as 
a  student,  and  on  leaving  that  institution,  he  studied  law  under  the  directions 
of  the  eminent  James  Brown.3  He  possessed  great  mental  and  physical  energy, 
and  these,  acting  in  con-cert  with  perseverance  and  industry,  soon  placed  him 
high  in  his  profession.  Before  he  was  twenty  j-ears  of  age  the  foundation  of 
his  future  popularity  and  fame  was  laid,  and  his  patriotism  and  military  genius 
were  developed  by  circumstances  which  seemed  to  menace  the  peace  then  exist- 
ing between  the  United  States  and  its  Spanish  neighbor  in  Louisiana.  In  vio- 
lation of  then  existing  treaties,  the  Spanish  authorities  closed  the  port  of  New 
Orleans  against  vessels  of  the  United  States,  in  1802.  The  people  of  the  South- 
west were  greatly  excited,  and  nothing  but  a  resort  to  arms  seemed  likely  to  be 
the  result.  Young  Johnson  took  an  active  part  in  the  public  proceedings,  in 
his  section,  and  volunteered,  with  others,  to  make  a  descent  upon  New  Orleans, 
in  the  event  of  a  war.  The  difficulty  was  speedily  settled  by  negotiations,  the 
cloud  passed  by,  and  Johnson's  military  ardor  was  allowed  to  cool  before  other 
and  more  important  events  again  awakened  it. 

Before  he  was  twenty -two  years  of  age,  young  Johnson  was  elected  to  a  seat 
in  the  Kentucky  legislature,  where  he  served  two  years,  to  the  great  satisfaction 
of  his  constituents.  In  1807,  ho  was  elected  a  representative  in  the  Federal 
Congress,  and  took  his  seat  there  when  he  was  just  twenty-five  years  of  age. 
There  he  took  a  prominent  position  at  the  beginning,  and  was  continually  re- 
elected  during  the  whole  of  that  momentous  period  of  our  history,  from  1807 
until  1819.  In  the  meanwhile,  he  acquired  that  military  distinction  in  the 
service  of  his  country,  for  which  ho  is  better  known  to  the  people,  than  as  a 
sound  and  judicious  legislator.  He  was  a  firm  supporter  of  President  Madison's 
war  measures ;  and  when  Congress  adjourned,  after  the  declaration  of  war  against 
Great  Britain,  in  1812,  he  hastened  home,  raised  a  battalion  of  volunteers,  and 
pushed  forward  toward  the  Canada  frontier  in  the  West,  bearing  the  commission 
of  colonel,  given  to  him  by  Governor  Shelby.  At  the  close  of  Autumn,  he  laid 
aside  his  sword,  took  his  seat  in  Congress,  worked  faithfully  in  the  prosecution 
of  measures  for  the  public  defence,  and  when  the  adjournment  came,  he  went 

1.  That  station  was  settled  in  1779,  by  four  brothers,  named  Bryant,  one  of  whom  married  a  sister  of 
the  renowned  Daniel  Boone.    These  stations  were  usually  palisaded  log-houses,  arranged  for  protection 
against  the  Indians. 

2.  See  sketch  of  James  Brown. 


368  ANN  HASSELTINE  JUDSON. 

homo  and  called  another  regiment  of  volunteers  to  the  field.  Under  the  com- 
mand of  General  Harrison,  he  was  the  chief  actor  in  the  sanguinary  battle  on 
the  Thames,  in  Canada  "West,  in  October,  1813,  when  the  Americans  gained 
such  a  decisive  victory  over  the  combined  forces  of  British  regulars,  under  Proc- 
tor, and  fifteen  hundred  Indians,  under  the  renowned  Tecumseh,  that  it  ended 
the  war  in  the  "West  Colonel  Johnson  led  the  division  against  the  Indians,  and 
he  was  in  the  thickest  of  the  fight  during  the  whole  contest.  Even  when  his 
bridle-arm  was  shattered,  and  his  horse  was  reeling  from  the  loss  of  blood,  he 
fought  on,  encouraged  his  men,  and  put  the  Indians  to  flight.  When  he  was 
borne  from  the  field,  there  were  twenty-five  bullet-holes  in  his  person,  his  cloth- 
ing, and  his  horse.  He  was  taken  to  Detroit,  and  from  thence  was  borne  home, 
in  great  pain,  In  February  following,  though  not  able  to  walk,  he  took  his  seat 
in  Congress.  He  was  every  where  greeted  by  the  people  with  wildest  enthusiasm 
as  the  Hero  of  the  "West. 

Colonel  Johnson  retired  from  Congress,  in  1819,  and  was  immediately  elected 
a  member  of  his  State  legislature.  He  had  just  taken  his  seat  in  that  body, 
when  it  chose  him  to  represent  Kentucky  in  the  Federal  Senate.  He  entered 
that  assembly,  as  a  member,  in  December,  1819,  and  served  his  constituents  and 
the  country  faithfully  until  1829,  when  he  was  again  elected  to  a  seat  in  the 
Lower  House.  There  he  remained  until  March,  183*7,  when  he  became  president 
of  the  Senate,  having  been  elected  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  in  the 
preceding  Autumn.  After  four  years  of  dignified  service  in  the  Senate,  he  re- 
tired from  public  life,  and  passed  the  remainder  of  his  days  on  his  farm  in  Scott 
county,  Kentucky,  except  a  brief  period  of  service  in  his  State  legislature.1  Ho 
was  engaged  in  that  service,  at  Frankfort,  when  he  was  prostrated  by  paralysis, 
and  expired  on  the  15th  of  November,  1850.  His  State  has  erected  a  beautiful 
marble  monument  to  his  memory,  in  the  cemetery  at  Frankfort. 


ANN    HASSELTINE   JUDSON. 

WHEN  we  glance  retrospectively  over  the  field  of  modern  missionary  labor, 
we  see  no  form  more  lovely  in  all  that  constitutes  loveliness ;  no  heart 
more  heroic,  and  no  hand  more  active  in  the  service  of  the  Great  Master,  than 
that  of  the  first  wife  of  Adoniram  Judson,  the  eminent  American  missionary  in 
Burmali.  She  appears  upon  the  page  of  missionary  history  like  an  illuminated 
initial  letter,  for  she  was  the  pioneer  in  the  service — the  first  American  woman 
who  volunteered  to  carry  the  Gospel  to  the  pagans  of  the  old  world. 

Ann  Hasseltine  was  born  in  Bradfdrd,  Massachusetts,  on  the  22d  of  December, 
1789.  She  was  a  gay  and  active  girl,  full  of  enterprise,  eager  in  the  pursuit  of 
knowledge,  extremely  beautiful  in  person,  and  lovely  in  all  her  ways.  She  was 
educated  at  the  Bradford  Academy,  where  she  always  bore  off  the  palm  of  su- 
perior scholarship.  On  the  5th  of  February,  1812,  she  was  married  to  Adoniram 
Judson,  who  had  been  appointed  one  of  the  first  American  missionaries  to  India; 
and  twelve  days  afterward  she  sailed,  with  Harriet  Newell  and  others,  for  Cal- 
cutta. On  the  passage,  she  and  her  husband  embraced  the  principles  of  the 
Baptists,  and  were  baptized  on  their  arrival  at  Calcutta,  in  September  following. 
"When,  as  has  been  observed  in  the  sketch  of  Harriet  Newell,  the  American 


1.  Colonel  Johnson  was  the  author  of  the  laws  which  abolished  imprisonment  for  debt,  in  Kentucky  ; 
and  of  the  famous  report  in  Congress,  against  the  discontinuance  of  the  mail  on  Sunday.  He  is  greatly 
revered  for  his  unwearied  efforts  in  behalf  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Revolution,  and  of  the  war  of  1812,  who 
asked  Congress  for  pensions  or  relief. 


ANN  HASSELTINE   JUDSON. 


369 


missionaries  were  ordered  to  quit  India,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Judson  sailed  to  tlio  Islo 
of  France,  and  there  they  heard  of  the  death  of  their  beloved  female  friend. 
They  remained  there  until  the  following  July,  when  they  went  to  Rangoon,  in 
Burmah,  and  there  began  to  cultivate  the  missionary  field  in  earnest.  Other 
missionaries  joined  them  there,  but  death  took  them  away,  and  in  1820  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Judson  alone  remained  in  the  vineyard.  Disease,  incident  to  the  climate, 
now  began  to  manifest  its  power  upon  Mrs.  Judson,  and  at  the  close  of  the  Sum- 
mer of  1821,  she  went  first  to  Calcutta,  then  to  England,  and  finally  returned  to 
America  in  September,  1822.  After  remaining  a  few  weeks  with  her  friends  at 
Bradford,  she  accepted  an  invitation  to  pass  the  Winter  in  Baltimore,  in  the 
family  of  her  husband's  brother.  There  she  wrote  an  interesting  History  of  the 
Burmojn  Mission,  in  a  series  of  letters  to  Mr.  Butterworth,  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, in  whose  family  she  had  tarried  while  in  England. 

In  June,  1823,  Mrs.  Judson  again  sailed  for  the  field  of  missionary  labor,  with 
renewed  bodily  strength  and  increased  earnestness  of  purpose,  and  joined  her 
husband  in  December  following.  A  few  days  afterward  they  started  for  Ava, 
the  capital  of  Burmah,  and  had  just  completed  their  preparations  for  missionary 
effort  there,  when  war  between  the  Burmese  and  the  British  government  of 
Bengal,  broke  out.  Mr.  Judson  was  seized,  cruelly  treated,  and  kept  a  prisoner 
by  the  Burman  government  for  more  than  eighteen  months,  half  of  the  time  in 
triple  fetters,  and  two  months  in  five  pair.  The  labors  of  Mrs.  Judson,  during 
that  time,  form  one  of  the  most  wonderful  chapters  in  the  record  of  female  hero- 

16* 


370  JOSEPH  HOPKINSON. 

ism.  Day  after  day  she  made  intercessions  before  government  officers  for  the 
liberation  of  her  husband  and  other  prisoners,  but  to  no  purpose ;  and  every  day 
she  walked  two  miles  to  carry  them  food  prepared  with  her  own  hands.  With- 
out her  ministrations  they  must  have  perished.  She  had  readily  learned  the 
language ;  and  finally  her  appeals,  written  in  elegant  Burmese,  were  given  to  the 
Emperor,  when  no  officer  dared  mention  the  subject  to  him.  The  sagacious 
monarch,  trembling  for  the  fate  of  his  kingdom,  (for  a  victorious  English  army 
was  marching  toward  his  capital,)  saw  safety  in  employing  her,  and  he  appointed 
her  his  embassadress  to  General  Sir  Archibald  Campbell,  the  British  leader,  to 
prepare  the  way  for  a  treaty.  She  was  received  by  the  British  commander  with 
all  the  ceremony  of  an  envoy  extraordinary.  She  managed  the  affairs  of  the 
Emperor  with  perfect  fidelity,  and  a  treaty  was  made  through  her  influence,  for 
which  the  proud  monarch  gave  her  great  praise.  She  secured  the  release  of  her 
husband  and  his  fellow-prisoners,  and  they  all  recommenced  their  missionary 
work. 

When  the  intense  excitement  which  she  had  so  long  experienced,  was  over, 
Mrs.  Judson  felt  the  reaction  with  terrible  force.  This,  added  to  her  great  suf- 
ferings, prostrated  her  strength,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  months,  while  Mr. 
Judson  was  absent  at  another  post  of  duty,  that  noble  disciple  of  Jesus  fell 
asleep  and  entered  upon  her  blessed  rest.  Her  spirit  departed  on  the  24th  of 
October,  1826,  when  she  was  almost  thirty-seven  years  of  age.  A  few  months 
afterward  her  only  surviving  child  died.  They  both  lie  buried  beneath  a  spread- 
ing hope-tree,  near  the  banks  of  the  Salmon  river.  She  is  one  of  the  most  be- 
loved in  memory  of  the  laborers  during  the  earliest  missionary  seed  time,  and 
she  will  have  her  full  reward  of  sheaves  at  the  harvest. 


JOSEPH    HOPIKINSON. 

rFHE  author  of  our  spirited  national  song,  Hail  Columbia,  was  highly  distin- 
1  guished  for  other  intellectual  achievements.  But  that  production  was  suffi- 
cient to  confer  upon  him  the  crown  of  earthly  immortality.1  He  was  a  son  of 
Francis  Hopkinson,  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and 
was  born  in  Philadelphia,  on  the  12th  of  November,  1770.  He  was  educated  in 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  then  studied  law,  first  with  Judge  Wilson, 
and  afterward  with  William  Rawle.  He  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  at  the  close  of 
1791,  and  commenced  its  practice  at  Easton,  on  the  Delaware.  He  was  begin- 
ning to  be  quite  successful  there,  when  he  returned  to  Philadelphia,  and  there 
took  a  high  rank  in  his  profession.  He  was  the  leading  counsel  of  Dr.  Rush  in 

1.  That  song  was  produced  almost  impromptu,  for  a  special  occasion.  A  young  man  named  Fox,  at- 
tached to  the  Philadelphia  theatre,  chiefly  as  a  singer,  was  about  to  have  a  benefit.  At  that  time  [179SJ 
there  was  a  prospect  of  war  between  the  United  States  and  France,  and  Fox.  anxious  to  produce  some 
novelty  for  his  benefit,  conceived  the  idea  of  having  an  original  song  that  should  arous,'  the  national 
spirit.  The  theatrical  poets  tried  to  produce  one,  but  failed.  The  benefit  was  to  take  place  oil  Monday, 
and  on  the  previous  Saturday  afternoon,  Fox  called  on  Judge  Ilopkins-on  (who  had  known  him  from  a 
school-boy),  and  asked  him  to  write  a  song  for  him,  adapted  to  the  popular  air  of  The  Pre.iidtnt'x  March. 
Hopkinson  consented,  and  with  the  object  of  awakening  a  truly  American  fpirit,  without  offence  to 
either  of  the  violent  political  parties  of  the  day,  he  wrote  Hail  Columbia.  It  was  received  by  the  audience 
at  the  theatre  with  the  wildest  applause,  and  was  encored  again  and  again.  The  words  flashed  all  over 
the  land,  as  soon  as  the  press  could  conduct  them,  and  were  every  where  electrical  in  their  effect.  By 
common  consent,  Hail  Columbia  became,  and  remains,  a  national  anthem.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  in 
this  connection,  that  The  President's  March  was  composed,  in  1789,  by  a  German,  named  Feyles,  leader 
of  the  orchestra  of  the  old  theatre  in  John  Street,  New  York  ;  and  was  first  performed  there  on  the  oc- 
casion of  President  Washington's  first  visit  at  that  play-house,  by  invitation  of  the  managers.  This  fact 
was  mentioned  to  the  writer,  by  Mr.  Custis,  the  adopted  son  of  Washington,  who  was  then  a  lad,  and  was 
present  on  the  occasion. 


MOSES  BROWN.  371 


his  famous  suit  against  William  Cobbett,  in  1799,  and  also  in  the  insurgent  trials 
before  Judge  Chase,  in  1800.  The  legal  knowledge,  acute  logic,  and  eloquent 
advocacy  which  he  displayed  on  those  occasions,  caused  Judge  Chase  to  employ 
Mr.  Hopkinson  as  his  counsel,  when,  afterward,  he  was  impeached  before  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States.  His  efforts  in  behalf  of  Judge  Chase  before  that 
august  tribunal,  drew  forth  the  warmest  voluntary  eulogiums  from  Aaron  Burr, 
and  other  distinguished  men. 

In  1815,  and  again  in  1817,  Mr.  Hopkinson  was  elected  a  representative  of 
Philadelphia  in  the  Federal  Congress,  and  ranked  among  the  first  of  the  many 
sound  statesmen  who  graced  that  body  at  that  interesting  period  of  our  political 
history.  His  speeches  against  re-chartering  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  and 
on  the  Seminole  war  and  other  topics  of  interest,  were  regarded  as  exceedingly 
able.  His  constituents  would  gladly  have  reflected  him,  in  1819,  but  he  pre- 
ferred the  retirement  of  private  life. 

At  the  close  of  his  second  term  in  Congress,  Mr.  Hopkinson  made  his  residence 
at  Bordentown,  in  New  Jersey,  and  was  soon  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  legislature 
of  that  State.  After  an  absence  of  three  years,  he  resumed  the  practice  of  his 
profession,  in  Philadelphia,  in  which  he  continued  until  1828,  when  President 
Adams  appointed  him  a  judge  of  the  United  States  Court,  for  the  Eastern  Dis- 
trict of  Pennsylvania.  That  office  had  been  filled  by  his  father  and  grandfather ; 
and  he  performed  its  duties  with  dignity  and  marked  ability,  until  his  death. 
Judge  Hopkinson  was  a  member  of  the  convention  which  met  at  Harrisburg,  in 
May,  1837,  to  revise  the  constitution  of  Pennsylvania.  He  was  chairman  of  the 
judiciary  committee  in  that  body,  and  eloquently  sustained  a  report  which  he 
submitted,  in  a  long  and  brilliant  speech.  Judge  Hopkinson  was  very  public- 
spirited,  and  took  part  in  many  movements  intended  for  the  moral  and  intellectual 
advancement  of  his  fellow-citizens.  At  the  time  of  his  death  he  was  one  of  the 
vice-presidents  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society;  a  trustee  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania ;  and  the  president  of  the  Pennsylvania  Academy  of  Fine 
Arts,  of  which  he  was  the  chief  founder.  For  more  than  twenty  .years  he  was 
the  intimate  and  confidential  friend  of  Joseph  Bonaparte,  who  owned,  and  lived 
upon,  a  fine  estate  at  Bordentown.  During  the  ex-king's  absence,  Judge  Hop- 
kinson always  managed  his  affairs ;  and  he  was  one  of  the  two  executors  of  his 
will.  Judge  Hopkinson  died  at  Philadelphia,  on  the  15th  of  January,  1842,  at 
the  age  of  a  little  more  than  seventy-one  years. 


MOSES    BROWN. 

VN  eminently  good  man  was  lost  to  earth  when  the  spirit  of  Moses  Brown, 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  Rhode  Island  College  (afterward  called  Brown 
University),  departed  for  its  home.  He  was  the  youngest  of  four  brothers,  who 
were  all  remarkable  for  public  spirit,  generous  enterprise,  and  practical  benevo- 
lence. He  was  born  at  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  in  1738.  Having  lost  his 
father  while  he  was  yet  a  small  boy,  he  left  school  at  the  age  of  thirteen  years, 
and  made  his  residence  with  a  paternal  uncle,  an  eminent  and  wealthy  merchant 
of  Providence.  There  he  was  trained  to  useful  habits  and  a  mercantile  pro- 
fession ;  and  in  the  bosom  of  that  excellent  home  he  found  a  treasure  in  a  pretty 
cousin,  the  daughter  of  his  patron,  whom  he  married,  in  1764.  Young  Brown 
had  commenced  mercantile  business  on  his  own  account  the  previous  year,  in 
connection  with  his  three  brothers.  After  ten  years'  close  application,  he  retired 


372  JOHN  RODGERS. 


from  business,  chiefly  on  account  of  feeble  health,  and  passed  much  of  his  time 
in  those  intellectual  pursuits  to  which  his  taste  led  him. 

Mr.  Brown  was  a  Baptist  until  1773  (about  the  time  when  he  left  business), 
when  he  became  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  and  remained  a  shining 
light  in  that  connection  until  his  death.  He  had  accumulated  wealth  by  his 
business,  and  inherited  a  large  property  through  his  wife.  These  possessions  he 
used  as  means  for  carrying  on  an  active  and  practical  philanthropy  during  a  long 
life.  He  manumitted  all  his  slaves,  in  1773,  and  was  ever  a  consistent  and 
zealous  opponent  of  all  systems  of  human  servitude.  He  was  a  munificent  patron 
of  a  Friends'  Boarding-school  at  Providence ;  founded  the  Rhode  Island  Abolition 
Society,  and  was  an  active  member  and  supporter  of  the  Rhode  Island  Peace  So- 
ciety. "When  Slater,  the  father  of  the  cotton  manufactures  in  this  country,  went 
to  Providence,  Moses  Brown  was  the  first  to  give  him  encouragement  and  substan- 
tial friendship ;  and  it  was  in  his  carriage  that  the  enterprising  Englishman  was 
conveyed  to  Pawtucket,  to  commence  the  preparation  of  a  cotton-mill.1  Though 
always  in  feeble  health,  Mr.  Brown  never  suffered  severe  illness.  His  corre- 
spondence was  very  extensive,  yet  he  seldom  employed  any  one  to  write  for  him. 
Even  his  Will,  prepared  when  he  was  ninety-six  years  of  age,  was  drawn  by  his 
own  hand.  That  eminent  servant  of  goodness  died  at  Providence,  on  the  Gth 
of  September,  1836,  in  the  ninety-eighth  year  of  his  age. 


JOHN    RODQERS. 

MORE  than  a  year  before  the  American  Congress  declared  war  against  Great 
Britain,  a  naval  engagement  took  place  near  our  coast  between  vessels  of 
the  two  nations,  being  partly,  it  was  alleged,  the  result  of  accident.  The  issue 
of  the  engagement  was  a  foreshadow  of  what  occurred  during  the  succeeding 
few  years.  The  American  vessel  alluded  to  was  in  command  of  Captain  John 
Rodgers,  a  gallant  American  officer,  who  was  born  in  the  present  Harford 
County,  Maryland,  on  the  llth  of  July,  1771.  His  passion  for  the  sea  was  very 
early  manifested,  and  at  the  age  of  thirteen  years  it  was  gratified  by  a  voyage. 
He  loved  the  occupation,  prepared  himself  for  it  as  a  profession,  and  at  the  age 
of  nineteen  years  he  was  intrusted  with  the  command  of  a  ship,  which  made  trading 
voyages  between  Baltimore  and  the  north  of  Europe.  Captain  Rodgers  con- 
tinued in  the  merchant  service  until  the  organization  of  the  American  navy,  in 
1797,  when  he  entered  it  as  a  first  lieutenant  on  board  the  frigate  Constellation, 
under  Commodore  Truxton.  He  commanded  the  prize  crew  that  took  charge 
of  the  captured  French  ship,  L' Insurgents,  in  February,  1798,  and  in  that  ca- 
pacity he  behaved  with  great  coolness  and  ability  in  times  of  imminent  danger. 
On  his  return  home,  he  obtained  a  furlough,  purchased  a  brig,  traded  at  St.  Do- 
mingo, and  during  the  terrible  massacre  of  the  white  people  there,  in  1804,  was 
instrumental  in  saving  many  lives. 

In  the  Spring  of  1799,  Lieutenant  Rodgers  was  promoted  to  Post-Captain  in 
the  navy,  and  ordered  to  the  command  of  the  Sloop-of-War  Maryland.  He 
cruised  on  the  "  Surinam  Station"  until  the  Autumn  of  1800,  when  he  returned 
home,  and  the  following  Spring  was  sent  with  dispatches  to  France.  He  served 
gallantly  in  the  war  with  the  Barbary  Powers ;  and  in  conjunction  with  Colonel 
Lear,  the  American  consul-general,  he  signed  a  treaty  with  the  Bey  of  Tripoli, 
in  June,  1805,  which  put  an  end  to  the  contest  with  that  State.  Captain  Rodgers 

1.  See  sketch  of  Slater. 


WILLIAM  ELLEEY  CHANNING-.  373 

had  command  of  the  flotilla  of  gun-boats,  in  the  harbor  of  New  York,  in  1807, 
where  he  remained  until  1809,  when  he  put  to  sea  in  the  frigate  Constitution. 
In  1811  he  was  in  command  of  the  President,  cruising  off  the  coasts  of  Mary- 
land and  Virginia.  English  ships  of  war  were  then  hovering  upon  our  shores, 
engaged  in  the  nefarious  business  of  kidnapping  seamen  from  American  vessels. 
With  that  vessel  he  compelled  the  commander  of  the  British  Sloop,  Little  Belt,  to 
be  frank  and  courteous,  when  he  had  met  her  under  suspicious  circumstances  in 
the  waters  of  Chesapeake  Bay.  These  were  the  vessels  alluded  to  at  the  com- 
mencement of  this  memoir.  The  event  created  a  great  sensation,  and  the  two 
governments  fully  sustained  the  conduct  of  their  respective  commanders.  War 
was  finally  declared,  and  within  an  hour  after  receiving  his  orders  from  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Commodore  Eodgers  sailed  from  the  port  of  New  York, 
with  a  small  squadron,  to  cruise  on  the  broad  Atlantic.  He  made  successful 
cruises  in  the  President  until  1814,  when  he  was  engaged  on  the  Potomac  in 
operations  against  the  British,  who  burned  Washington  City  in  August  of  that 
year.  He  soon  afterward  participated  with  gallantry  in  the  defence  of  Balti- 
more. 

Commodore  Eodgers  twice  refused  the  proffered  office  of  the  Secretaryship  of 
the  Navy,  first  by  President  Madison,  and  then  by  President  Monroe.  During 
almost  twenty-one  years  he  was  President  of  the  Board  of  Naval  Commissioners, 
except  for  about  two  years,  from  1825  to  1827,  when  he  commanded  the  Ameri- 
can squadron  in  the  Mediterranean,  having  the  North  Carolina  for  his  flag-ship. 
There  he  won  the  highest  respect  from  the  naval  officers  of  all  nations,  whom 
he  met.  In  the  Summer  of  1832  he  was  prostrated  by  cholera,  but  recovered. 
His  constitution,  however,  was  permanently  shattered.  A  voyage  to  England 
for  the  improvement  of  his  health,  was  of  no  avail,  and  he  lingered  until  1838, 
when,  on  the  first  day  of  August,  he  expired  at  Philadelphia,  in  the  sixty- 
seventh  year  of  his  age. 


WILLIAM    ELLERY    CHANNINGK 

EIIODE  ISLAND  has  produced  some  of  the  noblest  specimens  of  the  true 
i  American,  in  almost  every  department  of  life.  Of  these,  there  was  never  a 
mind  and  heart  more  truly  noble  in  emotion  and  expression,  than  that  of  William 
Ellery  Channing.  He  was  born  at  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  on  the  7th  of  April, 
1780.  He  was  a  lovely  child  in  person  and  disposition — "an  open,  brave,  and 
generous  boy."  William  Ellery,  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 
Ependence,  was  his  maternal  grandfather,  and  he  inherited  that  statesman's 
strength  of  character  and  honest  patriotism.  At  twelve  years  of  age  he  was 
placed  in  the  family  of  an  uncle,  at  New  London,  where  he  prepared  for  college, 
and  entered  Harvard,  as  a  student,  in  1794.  He  bore  the  highest  honors  of  the 
institution  at  his  graduation,  in  1798,  and  then  went  to  Virginia,  as  tutor  in  the 
family  of  David  M.  Randolph,  Esq.,  of  Richmond.  Ill  health  compelled  him  to 
return  home,  and  he  prepared  for  the  gospel  ministry.  He  was  made  regent  in 
Harvard  University,  in  1801,  was  licensed  to  preach,  in  1802,  and  was  ordained 
pastor  of  the  Federal  Street  Unitarian  Society,  in  Boston,  in  1803.  Then  com- 
menced his  noble  labors  in  the  cause  of  Christianity,  whose  doctrines  he  so  elo- 
quently enforced  by  precept  and  example.  He  continued  to  discharge  the  duties 
of  pastor,  without  aid,  until  1824,  when  the  great  increase  of  his  congregation, 
and  the  multiplication  of  his  labors,  caused  his  people,  who  loved  him  as  a  father, 
to  employ  a  colleague  for  him.  He  visited  Europe,  held  communion  with  some 


374 


WILLIAM  ELLEEY  CHAINING. 


of  the  best  minds  there,  and  he  returned  home  with  larger  views,  and  more 
ennobling  thoughts  and  purposes.  For  almost  forty  years,  Dr.  Channing  (the 
title  of  D.D.  was  conferred  by  the  Faculty  of  Harvard  University)  was  connected 
with  the  same  society ;  and  during  all  that  time  he  was  afflicted  with  ill  health, 
sometimes  in  only  a  slight  degree.  His  fervid  eloquence  made  his  permanent 
congregation  a  large  one,  and  crowds  of  strangers  attended  his  ministrations. 
He  wrote  much  and  nobly,  for  the  honor  of  God  and  the  good  of  humanity.  He 
was  an  uncompromising  advocate  for  freedom  in  all  its  relations  and  conditions, 
and  yet  he  urged  his  plea  for  humanity  with  so  much  gentleness  and  affectionate 
persuasion,  that  no  one  could  be  offended,  however  unpalatable  his  truths  or  his 
doctrines  might  be.  In  the  Christian  world  he  moved  as  a  peace-maker,  labor- 
ing incessantly  to  break  down  the  hedges  of  creeds,  and  to  unite  all  who  loved 
righteousness,  under  the  broad  and  beautiful  banner  of  a  pure  practical  CHRIS- 
TIANITY. He  was  a  man  of  the  purest  nature  and  most  guileless  life ;  and  he 
moved  like  the  gentle  spirit  of  love  among  his  fellow-men,  scattering  roses  and 
sunshine  upon  every  lonely  pathway  of  life's  weary  pilgrims,  and  always  telling 
the  care-worn  and  afflicted  travellers  of  the  sweet  resting-places  by  the  side  of 
the  still  waters  of  a  better  sphere.  His  spirit  yet  breathes  out  his  noble  human- 
ities in  his  writings ;  and  he  is  to-day  a  powerful  preacher  of  love  and  justice, 


ANDREW  JACKSON  DOWNING.  375 

though  his  voice  was  hushed  into  eternal  silence,  long  j^ears  ago.  His  spirit 
was  called  home  on  the  2d  of  October,  1842,  when  he  was  tarrying  at  Benning- 
ton,  in  Vermont,  while  on  a  journey  for  the  benefit  of  his  health. 


ANDREW    JACKSON    DOWNING. 

"VTO  American  ever  contributed  so  much  toward  the  creation  and  cultivation 
li  of  a  taste  for  beautiful  rural  architecture,  landscape  gardening,  and  the  ar- 
rangement of  fruit  and  ornamental  trees,  as  A.  J.  Downing,  who  was  drowned 
on  the  occasion  of  the  destruction  of  the  steamer  Henry  Clay,  near  Yonkers,  in 
July,  1852.  An  extensive  traveller  in  the  Atlantic  States  said,  soon  after  the  sad 
event,  "  Much  of  the  improvement  that  has  taken  place  in  this  country  during 
the  last  twelve  years,  in  Rural  Architecture,  and  in  Ornamental  Gardening  and 
Planting,  may  be  ascribed  to  him;"  and  another,  speaking  of  suburban  cottages 
in  the  West,  said,  "  I  asked  the  origin  of  so  much  taste,  and  was  told  it  might 
principally  be  traced  to  Downing's  Cottage  Residences,  and  his  Horticulturist." 

Mr.  Downing  was  born  in  Newburgh,  Orange  County,  New  York,  in  1815. 
From  early  boyhood  he  delighted  to  commune  with  nature,  and  loved  flowers 
with  a  passionate  delight.  The  beautiful  was  worshipped  by  him  long  before 
his  acute  logical  and  analytical  mind  could  give  a  reason  for  his  devotion ;  and 
his  dislike  of  everything  that  wanted  symmetry  and  fitness,  was  an  early  mani- 
festation of  his  pure  taste.  When  he  grew  to  manhood,  these  tastes  and  facul- 
ties were  nobly  developed  and  actively  employed ;  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-six 
years  he  published  the  results  of  his  practice,  observations  and  reflections,  in  a 
valuable  book  on  Landscape  Gardening.  It  was  a  work  eminently  original,  for 
he  had  few  precedents,  either  in  personal  example  or  in  books,  as  guides  in  his 
peculiar  method  of  treating  the  subject.  He  seized  upon  the  great  principles  of 
the  science  as  developed  in  the  works  of  Repton,  Loudon,  and  others ;  and  then, 
bringing  the  great  powers  of  his  mind  to  bear  upon  the  topic,  produced  a  book 
which  caused  an  eminent  British  writer  on  the  subject  to  say  of  him,  "  no  Eng- 
lish landscape  gardener  has  written  so  clearly,  or  with  so  much  real  intensity." 

Mr.  Downing  next  turned  his  attention  to  the  kindred  art  of  Architecture,  and 
soon  produced  a  volume  on  Cottage  Residences.  Then  appeared  his  Architecture 
of  Country  Houses,  in  which  he  gave  designs  for  Cottages,  Farm  Houses  and 
Villas,  exterior  and  interior,  with  valuable  suggestions  respecting  furniture,  ven- 
tilation, &c.  In  1845  his  large  work  on  Fruit  and  Fruit  Trees  of  America,  was 
published  in  New  York  and  London,  which  has  passed  through  many  editions. 
His  mind  and  hands  were  ever  actively  employed  in  his  favorite  pursuit ;  and 
through  the  Horticulturist,  a  monthly  repository  of  practical  knowledge  on  the 
subject  of  cultivation  of  every  kind,  which  he  edited.  Mr.  Downing  communi- 
cated the  results  of  his  observations  and  personal  experiences.  Every  movement 
having  for  its  object  the  promotion  of  the  science  of  cultivation,  received  his 
ardent  support,  and  by  lectures,  essays,  reports  of  societies  and  other  vehicles 
of  information,  he  was  continually  pouring  a  flood  of  influence  that  is  seen  and 
felt  on  every  side.  In  addition  to  his  large  works,  he  had  published  Rules  of 
American  Pomonology,  and  edited  the  productions  of  others. 

Mr.  Downing  was  eminently  practical  in  all  his  efforts.  His  beautiful  resi- 
dence and  grounds  around  it,  at  Newburgh,  formed  the  central  point  of  his  la- 
bors. He  was  continually  called  upon  for  plans  for  buildings,  and  pleasure 
grounds,  public  and  private ;  and  at  the  time  of  his  death  he  was  on  his  way  to 
Washington  City,  in  the  prosecution  of  his  professional  engagements  there,  in 


376  JONATHAN  HARRINGTON. 

laying  out  and  adorning  the  public  grounds  around  the  Smithsonian  Institute. 
A  part  of  his  plan  for  beautifying  that  public  square  was  to  make  a  great  central 
avenue,  and  to  border  it  with  trees  and  shrubs  which  should  exhibit  every  va- 
riety produced  in  America,  that  would  flourish  in  the  climate  of  Washington 
city.  But,  alas !  this  labor,  as  well  as  all  of  his  other  numerous  professional  en- 
gagements, was  suddenly  arrested  by  a  fearful  calamity  in  which  he  was  involved. 
On  a  beautiful  afternoon,  the  31st  of  July,  1852,  he  was  a  passenger,  for  New 
York,  in  the  steamer  Henry  Clay.  When  opposite  Forrest  Point,  a  little  below 
Yonkers,  it  was  discovered  that  the  vessel  was  on  fire.  Her  bow  was  turned 
toward  the  shore,  when  the  smoke  and  flames  rushed  over  that  part  of  the  boat 
where  most  of  the  passengers  were  collected.  Just  as  she  struck  the  beach 
these  were  compelled  by  the  heat  to  leap  into  the  water,  and  fifty-six  persons 
perished  by  being  either  drowned  or  burned.  In  attempting  to  save  the  life  of 
his  mother-in-law,  Mr.  Downing  lost  his  own,  although  he  was  an  expert  swim- 
mer. That  last  act  of  his  life  reflected  a  prominent  trait  in  his  daily  intercourse 
with  society — unselfish  goodness.  He  was  not  yet  thirty-eight  years  of  age,  when 
he  was  stopped  in  the  midst  of  a  useful  career. 


JONATHAN    HARKINQTON. 

ON  a  lovely  afternoon  in  the  Autumn  of  1848,  the  writer  reined  up  his  horse  at 
a  little  picket-gate  in  front  of  a  neat  residence  in  East  Lexington,  Massa- 
chusetts. A  slender  old  man,  apparently  not  more  than  seventy  years  of  age, 
was  splitting  fire-wood  in  the  yard  near  by,  and  plied  the  axe  with  a  vigorous 
hand.  The  residence  belonged  to  Jonathan  Harrington,  who.  when  a  lad  not 
eighteen  years  of  age,  played  the  fife  for  the  minute-men  upon  the  green  at 
Lexington,  on  the  morning  of  the  memorable  19th  of  April,  1775.  The  vigorous 
axe-man  in  the  yard  was  the  patriot  himself.  I  had  journeyed  from  Boston,  a 
dozen  miles  or  more,  to  visit  him ;  and  when  he  sat  down  in  his  rocking-chair, 
and  related  the  events  of  that  historic  morning,  the  very  spirit  of  Liberty  seemed 
to  burn  in  every  word  from  those  lips  that  touched  that  little  instrument  of  music 
at  the  gray  dawn.  He  kindly  allowed  me  to  sketch  his  features  for  my  port- 
folio ;  and  then,  writing  his  name  beneath  the  picture — ':  Jonathan  Harrington, 
aged  90,  the  8th  of  July,  1848  " — he  apologized  for  the  rough  appearance  of  his 
signature,  and  charged  the  unsteadiness  of  his  hand  to  his  labor  with  the  axe. 
His  younger  brother,  who  sat  near  him,  appeared  more  feeble  than  he. 

Mr.  Harrington  was  born  on  the  8th  of  July,  1757,  in  the  town  of  Lexington; 
and  though  a  mere  youth  when  the  train-bands  were  formed,  in  1774,  he  en- 
rolled himself  as  one  of  the  militia  of  his  district,  who,  because  they  were  bound 
to  appear  in  arms  at  a  moment's  warning,  were  called  minute-men.  When  the 
fow  patriots  gathered  upon  the  green  at  Lexington  to  oppose  the  invading  march 
of  British  troops  from  Boston,  young  Harrington  was  there  with  his  fife,  and 
with  its  martial  music  he  opened  the  ball  of  the  Revolution,  where 

" Yankees  skilled  in  martial  rule, 

First  put  the  British  troops  to  school ; 

Instructed  them  in  warlike  trade, 

And  new  manoauvres  of  parade  ; 

The  true  war-dance  of  Yankee  reels, 

And  manual  exercise  of  heels  ; 

Made  them  give  up,  like  saints  complete, 

The  arm  of  flesh  and  trust  the  feet, 

And  work,  like  Christians  undissemblirg, 

Salvation  out  with  fear  and  trembling."— TRUMBULL. 


HARMAN  BLENNERHASSETT.  377 

After  performing  that  prelude,  he  retired.  lie  was  not  a  soldier  during  the 
war ;  nor  was  his  life  afterward  remarkable  for  any  thing  except  as  the  career 
of  a  good  citizen.  He  lived  on  in  the  quiet  enjoyment  of  rural  pursuits,  not 
specially  noticed  by  his  fellow-men,  until  the  survivors  of  the  Revolution  began 
to  be  few  arid  cherished.  Then  the  hearts  of  the  generation  around  him  began 
to  be  moved  with  reverence  for  him.  On  the  seventy-fifth  anniversary  of  the 
skirmishes  at  Lexington  and  Concord,  the  event  was  celebrated  at  the  latter 
place.  In  the  procession  was  a  carriage,  bearing  the  venerable  Harrington  and 
his  brother ;  Amos  Baker,  of  Lincoln ;  Thomas  Hill,  of  Danvers ;  and  Dr.  Preston, 
of  Billerica — the  assembled  survivors  of  those  first  bloody  struggles  for  American 
Independence.  Edward  PJverett  made  an  eloquent  speech  on  the  occasion ;  and, 
when  alluding  to  the  venerated  fifer,  he  repeated  the  words  of  David  to  the  good 
son  of  Saul,  ''Very  pleasant  art  thou  to  me,  my  brother  Jonathan."  Mr.  Har- 
rington lived  almost  four  years  longer,  and  by  the  death  of  his  compatriots  just 
mentioned,  he  became  the  last  survivor  of  the  minute-men  of  Lexington.1  He 
died  on  the  28th  of  March,  1854,  in  the  ninety-sixth  year  of  his  age.  His  funeral 
was  attended  by  the  governor  and  legislature  of  Massachusetts,  and  at  least  six 
thousand  other  citizens. 


HARMAN    BLENNERHASSETT. 

IN  the  bosom  of  the  Ohio  river,  about  fourteen  miles  below  the  mouth  of  the 
Muskingum,  is  a  beautiful  island,  around  which  cluster  memories  and  asso- 
ciations, and  the  elements  of  many  legends ;  and  these  increase  in  interest  with 
the  flight  of  years.  Those  memories,  and  associations,  and  legends,  are  con- 
nected with  the  name  and  destiny  of  a  family  whose  history  illustrates  the  won- 
derful vicissitudes  of  human  life,  and  the  uncertainty  of  earthly  possessions. 
It  was  that  of  Blennerhassett,  whose  name,  radiant  with  light,  will  ever  be  as- 
sociated with  that  of  Aaron  Burr,  clouded  in  darkness. 

Harman  Blennerhassett  was  descended  from  an  ancient  Irish  family  of  the 
county  of  Kerry,  whose  residence  was  Castle  Conway.  While  his  mother  was 
visiting  in  Hampshire,  England,  1767,  he  was  born.  His  father,  belonging  to 
one  of  the  oldest  aristocratic  families  of  Ireland,  gave  his  son  every  educational 
advantage  that  wealth  could  afford,  first  at  Westminster  School,  and  then  in 
Trinity  College,  Dublin.  He  and  his  friend  and  relation,  the  late  Thomas  Addis 
Emmett,  of  New  York,  were  graduated  at  the  same  time ;  and  after  young 
Blennerhassett  had  made  a  tour  of  the  Continent,  he  and  Emmett  were  admit- 
ted to  the  practice  of  the  law,  on  the  same  day.  Mr.  Blennerhassett  had  a 
great  fondness  for  science  and  literature,  and  being  an  expectant  of  a  large  for- 
tune, he  paid  more  attention  to  those  attractive  pursuits  than  to  business  in  his 
profession.  That  fortune  was  possessed  by  him,  on  the  death  of  his  father,  in 
1796.  At  that  time  he  had  become  a  popular  politician,  of  the  liberal  stamp, 
and  having  involved  himself  in  some  difficulties,  he  sold  his  estate,  went  to 
England,  and  there  married  Miss  Agnew,  a  young  lady  possessed  of  great  beauty 
and  varied  accomplishments.2  Each  appeared  worthy  of  the  other,  and  the  at- 


1.  Early  in  1855,  one  of  the  British  soldiers  who  followed  Pitcaim  to  Lexington,  eighty  years  before, 
died  in  England,  at  the  age  of  107  years.    He  was  a  Wesleyan  minister,  named  George  Fletcher.     For 
eighty-three  years  he  was  in  active  life  ;  twenly-six  of  which  he  was  a  soldier  in  the  royal  army.     He  is 
supposed  to  have  been  the  last  survivor  of  that  detachment  sent  out  by  General  Gage,  on  the  night  of 
the  18th  of  April,  1775,  to  capture  or  destroy  the  American  stores  at  Concord. 

2.  She  was  a  granddaughter  of  Brigadier-General  James  Agnew,  of  the  British  army,  who  was  killed 
in  the  battle  at  Germantown,  in  the  Autumn  of  1777- 


378  HARMAN  BLENNERHASSETT. 

mosphere  of  their  future  was  all  rose-tinted.  Charmed  by  the  free  institutions 
of  the  United  States,  Mr.  Blennerhassett  resolved  to  make  his  home  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Republic  of  the  West.  With  a  fine  library  and  philosophical  appara- 
tus, and  a  competent  fortune,  he  came  hither  toward  the  close  of  the  Summer 
of  1797.  After  spending  a  few  weeks  in  New  York,  the  reports  of  the  beauty, 
fertility,  and  salubrious  climate  of  the  Ohio  country  beckoned  him  thither,  and 
early  in  Autumn  he  reached  Marietta.  In  March,  following1,  he  purchased  a  fine 
plantation  upon  an  island  in  the  Ohio  (above  alluded  to),  and  at  once  commenced 
transforming  that  luxuriant  wilderness  into  a  paradise  for  himself  and  family. 
A  spacious  and  elegant  mansion  was  erected ;  the  grounds  were  tastefully  laid 
out  and  planted,  and  that  island  soon  became  the  resort  of  some  of  the  best 
minds  west  of  the  mountains.  Science,  music,  painting,  farm  culture  and  social 
pleasures,  made  up  a  great  portion  of  the  sum  of  daily  life  in  that  elegant  re- 
treat. For  almost  five  years  that  gifted  family  enjoyed  unalloyed  happiness,  and 
they  regarded  their  dwelling  as  their  home  for  life.  One  day  in  the  Spring  of 
1805,  a  small  man,  about  fifty  years  of  age,  elegantly  attired,  landed  from  a  boat 
and  sauntered  about  the  grounds.  With  his  usual  frankness,  Mr.  Blennerhas- 
sett invited  him  to  partake  of  his  hospitality,  though  a  stranger  to  him-  in  name 
and  person.  It  was  Aaron  Burr,  the  wily  serpent,  that  beguiled  the  unsuspect- 
ing Blennerhassett  from  his  books,  his  family  and  home,  to  feed  on  the  danger- 
ous fruit  of  political  ambition  and  avaricious  desires.  Burr  was  then  weaving 
his  scheme  of  conquest  in  the  far  south-west,  and  fired  the  imagination  of 
Blennerhassett  with  dreams  of  wealth  and  power.  When  he  had  departed, 
Blennerhassett  was  a  changed  man,  and  clouds  began  to  gather  around  the 
bright  star  of  his  destiny.  He  placed  his  wealth  and  reputation  in  the  keeping 
of  an  unprincipled  demagogue,  and  lost  both.  For  a  year  and  a  half  the  scheme 
was  ripening,  when  the  Federal  government,  suspecting  Burr  of  treason,  put 
forth  its  arm  and  crushed  the  viper  in  the  egg.1  Burr  and  Blennerhassett  were 
arrested  on  a  charge  of  treason.  The  former  was  tried  and  acquitted,  when  pro- 
ceedings against  the  latter  were  suspended.  From  that  time  poor  Blennerhas- 
sett was  a  doomed  man.  His  paradise  was  laid  waste,  and  with  a  sad  heart  he 
went  to  Mississippi  and  became  a  cotton  planter.  There  he  struggled  against 
losses,  which  were  more  depressing  because,  from  time  to  time,  he  was  called 
upon  with  Burr's  notes  endorsed  by  himself,  and  was  compelled  to  pay  them. 
At  the  end  of  ten  years  his  fortune  was  almost  exhausted,  and  with  the  promise 
of  a  judgeship  in  Lower  Canada,  he  went  to  Montreal  in  1819.  Disappoint- 
ment awaited  him,  and  he  returned  to  England  in  expectation  of  public  employ- 
ment there.  That  hope,  too,  was  blighted ;  and  after  residing  awhile  at  Bath 
with  a  maiden  sister,  he  went,  with  his  family,  to  the  island  of  Guernsey. 
There  that  highly-gifted  and  unfortunate  man  died  in  1831,  at  the  age  of  sixty- 
three  years.  In  1842  his  widow  came  to  America,  with  her  two  invalid  sons, 
for  the  purpose  of  seeking  remuneration  from  Congress  for  losses  of  property 
sustained  at  the  time  of  her  husband's  arrest.  She  petitioned  Congress,  and  her 
suit  was  eloquently  sustained  by  Henry  Clay  and  others.  While  the  matter  was 
pending,  Mrs.  Blennerhassett  sickened.  She  was  in  absolute  want,  and  her 
necessities  were  relieved  by  some  benevolent  Irish  females  of  New  York,  where 
she  resided.  Death  soon  removed  her,  and  that  beautiful  and  accomplished 
woman,  the  child  of  social  honor  and  of  opulence,  was  buried  by  the  kind  hands 
of  the  Sisters  of  Charity,  in  August,  1842. 

1  See  sketch  of  Aaron  Burr. 


JOHN  JACOB   ASTOR. 


379 


JOHN    JACOB    AS  TOR. 

NOT  far  from  lovely  Heidelberg,  on  the  Rhine,  in  the  grand-duchy  of  Baden, 
is  the  picturesque  little  village  of  Walldorf,  nestled  among  quiet  hills,  away 
from  the  din  of  commerce  and  the  vexations  of  promiscuous  intercourse  with  the 
great  world  of  business  and  politics.  Near  that  little  village,  in  the  mid-summer 
of  1763,  an  infant  was  born  of  humble  parents,  who,  in  after  years,  became  a 
"  merchant  prince,"  and  died  a  Croesus  among  an  opulent  people.  His  name 
was  John  Jacob  Astor.  He  was  nurtured  in  the  simplicity  of  rural  life,  yet  he 
manifested  ambition  for  travel  and  traffic,  at  an  early  age.  "While  a  mere  strip- 
ling, he  left  home  for  London.  He  started  for  a  sea-port,  on  foot,  with  all  his 
worldly  wealth  in  a  bundle  hanging  over  his  shoulder;  and  beneath  a  linden 
tree,  in  whose  shadow  he  sought  repose,  he  resolved  to  be  honest,  to  be  industrious, 
and  to  avoid  gambling.  Upon  this  solid  moral  basis  he  built  the  superstructure 
of  his  fame,  and  secured  his  great  wealth. 

Mr.  Astor  left  London  for  America,  in  the  same  month  when  the  British  troops 
left  New  York,  at  the  close  of  the  War  for  Independence,  bringing  with  him 
some  merchandize  for  traffic.  His  elder  brother  had  been  in  this  country  several 
years,  and  had  often  written  to  him  concerning  its  advantages  for  a  young  man 
of  enterprise.  Mr.  Astor  soon  became  acquainted  with  a  farrier  (one  of  his 


380  JOHN  JACOB  ASTOR. 


countrymen),  and,  having  obtained  from  him  all  necessary  information  concern- 
ing the  business,  he  resolved  to  employ  the  proceeds  of  his  merchandize  in  the 
far  traffic.  He  commenced  the  business  in  New  York,  and  was  successful  from 
the  beginning.  His  enterprise,  guided  by  great  sagacity,  always  kept  in  advance 
of  his  capital ;  and  year  after  year  his  business  limits  expanded.  He  made  reg- 
ular visits  to  Montreal,  where  he  purchased  furs  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company, 
and  shipped  them  for  London.  When  commercial  treaties  permitted,  after  1794, 
he  sent  his  furs  to  all  parts  of  the  United  States,  and  for  many  years  carried  on 
a  very  lucrative  trade  with  Canton,  in  China.  Success  was  always  at  his  right 
hand.  After  spending  many  years  as  a  second-hand  operator  in  furs,  and  having 
accumulated  a  large  fortune,  he  resolved  to  do  business  on  his  own  account  en- 
tirely, by  trading  with  the  Indians  directly,  who  were  supplying  a  new  corpora- 
tion, known  as  the  North-western  Company,  with  the  choicest  furs,  from  the 
Mississippi  and  its  tributaries.  The  general  government  approved  of  his  plan 
for  securing  that  vast  trade  of  the  interior;  and,  in  1809,  the  State  of  New  York 
incorporated  The  American  Fur  Company,  with  a  capital  of  one  million  of  dollars 
and  the  privilege  of  extending  it  to  two  millions.  The  president  and  directors 
were  merely  nominal  officers,  for  the  capital,  management,  and  profits,  all  be- 
longed to  Mr.  Astor. 

In  1811,  Mr.  Astor  bought  out  the  North-western  Company,  and,  with  somo 
associates,  formed  a  system  of  operations  by  which  the  immense  trade  in  furs  of 
the  middle  regions  of  North  America  might  be  controlled  by  him.  Under  the 
name  of  the  South-western  Fur  Company,  their  operations  were  commenced,  but 
the  war  between  the  United  States  and  England,  kindled  in  1812,  suspended 
their  movements,  for  a  while.  In  the  meanwhile,  the  mind  of  Mr.  Astor  had 
grasped  a  more  extensive  enterprise.  The  Pacific  coast  was  a  rich  field  for  car- 
rying on  the  fur  trade  with  China.  Already  the  country  of  the  Columbia  river 
had  been  made  known  by  the  visits  of  Boston  merchant-ships,  and  the  expedi- 
tion of  Lewis  and  Clarke,  across  the  Continent,  in  1804.  Mr.  Astor  conceived 
the  idea  of  making  himself  "sole  master"  of  that  immense  trade.  In  1810,  the 
Pacific  Fur  Company  was  chartered,  with  Mr.  Astor  at  its  head.  His  plan  was 
to  have  a  line  of  trading  posts  across  the  Continent  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia 
river,  and  a  fortified  post  there  to  be  supplied  with  necessaries  by  a  ship  passing 
around  Cape  Horn  once  a  year.  The  post  at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  was 
established,  and  named  Astoria.  It  was  the  germ  of  the  budding  State  of  Ore- 
gon. Then  commenced  a  series  of  operations  on  a  scale  altogether  beyond  any 
thing  hitherto  attempted  by  individual  enterprise.  The  history  is  full  of  wildest 
romance ;  and  the  chaste  pen  of  Irving  has  woven  the  wonderful  incidents  into 
a  charming  narrative  that  fills  two  volumes.  We  cannot  even  glance  at  it,  in 
this  brief  memoir.  The  whole  scheme  was  the  offspring  of  a  capacious  mind ; 
and  had  the  plans  of  Mr.  Astor  been  faithfully  carried  out  by  his  associates,  it 
would,  no  doubt,  have  been  eminently  successful.  But  the  enterprise  soon  failed. 
During  the  war,  a  British  armed  sloop  captured  Astoria,  and  the  British  fur 
traders  entered  upon  the  rich  field  which  Mr.  Astor  had  planted,  and  reaped  the 
golden  harvest.  When  the  war  had  ended,  and  Astoria  was  left  within  the 
domain  of  the  United  States,  by  treaty,  Mr.  Astor  solicited  the  government  to 
aid  him  in  recovering  his  lost  possessions.  Aid  was  withheld,  and  the  grand 
scheme  of  opening  a  high-way  across  the  continent,  with  a  continuous  chain  of 
military  and  trading  posts,  which  Mr.  Astor  had  laid  before  President  Jefferson, 
became  a  mere  figment  of  history,  over  which  sound  statesmen  soon  lamented. 
His  dream  of  an  empire  beyond  the  mountains,  "  peopled  by  free  and  independent 
Americans,  and  linked  to  us  by  ties  of  blood  and  interest,"  vanished  like  the 
morning  dew !  It  has  since  become  a  reality. 

After  the  failure  of  this  great  enterprise,  Mr.  Astor  gradually  withdrew  from 


THOMAS  H.  GALLAUDET.  381 

commercial  life.  He  was  the  owner  of  much  real  estate,  especially  in,  the  city 
of  New  York  and  vicinity,  and  held  a  large  amount  of  public  stocks.  The  re- 
mainder of  his  days  was  chiefly  spent  in  the  management  of  his  accumulated 
and  rapidly-appreciating  property.  He  died  in  the  city  of  New  York,  in  the 
month  of  March,  1848,  at  the  age  of  almost  eighty-five  years.  The  great  bulk 
of  his  immense  property,  amounting  to  several  millions  of  dollars,  was  left  to  his 
family.  Before  his  death,  he  provided  ample  funds  for  the  establishment  and 
support  of  a  splendid  public  library  in  the  city  of  New  York ;  and  he  also  gave 
a  large  sum  of  money  to  his  native  town,  for  the  purpose  of  founding  an  institu- 
tion for  the  education  of  the  young,  and  as  a  retreat  for  indigent  aged  persons. 
The  Astor  Library  in  New  York,  and  the  Astor  House  in  "Walldorf,  were  both 
opened  in  1854.  They  are  noble  monuments  to  the  memory  of  the  "merchant 
prince." 


THOMAS    H.  OALLAUDET. 

"  nPHE  cause  of  humanity  is  primarily  indebted  to  him  for  the  introduction  of 
1  deaf  mute  instruction  into  the  United  States,  and  for  the  spread  of  the  in- 
formation necessary  for  prosecuting  it  successfully  in  public  institutions,  of  which 
all  in  the  country  are  experiencing  the  benefits."  What  greater  eulogium  need 
any  man  covet  than  this  expression  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  American 
Asylum  for  the  Deaf  and  Dumb,  at  Hartford,  when  they  accepted  the  resigna- 
tion of  the  Rev.  Thomas  H.  Gallaudet,  as  president  of  that  institution  ?  Tho 
winning  of  such  laurels  in  the  field  of  active  philanthropy,  is  a  result  more  noble 
than  any  achieved  upon  Marathon  or  Waterloo. 

Thomas  H.  Gallaudet  was  a  native  of  Philadelphia,  where  ho  was  born  on 
the  10th  of  December,  1787.  He  acquired  a  good  Academic  education  in  his 
native  city,  and  soon  after  his  parents  removed  to  Hartford,  in  Connecticut,  in 
1800,  he  entered  Yale  College.  There  he  was  graduated  in  1805,  and  com- 
menced the  study  of  law.  The  profession  had  but  few  charms  for  him,  and  on 
being  chosen  a  tutor  in  Yale  College,  in  1808,  he  abandoned  it.  He  continued 
his  connection  with  Yale  until  1810,  and  then  engaged  in  commercial  business. 
That  employment  was  also  uncongenial  to  his  taste,  and  he  abandoned  it  after  a 
trial  of  a  few  months.  In  the  meanwhile  his  mind  had  received  deep  religious 
convictions,  and  he  felt  called  to  the  Gospel  ministry.  He  entered  the  Andover 
Theological  Seminary  in  1811,  completed  his  studies  there  in  1814,  and  was  then 
licensed  to  preach.  Again  ho  was  diverted  from  a  chosen  pursuit,  and  he  was 
led  by  Providence  into  a  field  for  useful  labor,  far  above  what  he  had  aspired  to. 
His  attention  had  been  drawn  to  the  instruction  of  the  Deaf  and  Dumb,  while 
at  Andover,  and  when  he  left  that  institution  Dr.  Mason  Coggswell,  of  Hartford, 
invited  him  to  instruct  his  little  daughter,  who  was  a  deaf  mute.  Mr.  Gallau- 
det's  experiments  -were  eminently  successful,  and  Dr.  Coggswell  felt  an  irre- 
pressible desire  to  extend  the  blessings  of  his  instruction  to  others  similarly 
afflicted.  An  association  of  gentlemen  was  formed  for  the  purpose ;  and  in  the 
Spring  of  1815,  they  sent  Mr.  Gallaudet  to  Europe  to  visit  institutions  for  the 
Deaf  and  Dumb,  already  established  there.  The  selfishness  and  jealousy  of  tho 
managers  of  those  in  England  prevented  his  learning  much  that  was  new  or 
useful  there ;  but  at  the  Royal  Institution  in  Paris,  under  the  care  of  the  Abba 
Sicard,  every  facility  was  given  to  him.  He  returned  in  1816,  accompanied  by 
Lawrence  Lo  Clerc  to  bo  his  assistant.  Measures  had  been  taken,  in  the  mean- 


382  ELIJAH  HEDDING. 


while,  to  found  a  public  institution;  and  on  the  15th  of  April,  1817,  the  first 
Asylum  for  the  Deaf  and  Dumb,  established  in  America,  was  opened  at  Hart- 
ford, under  the  charge  of  Mr.  Gallaudet.1  It  prospered  greatly,  and  became  the 
centre  of  abundant  blessings.  There  he  labored  with  intense  and  increasing 
zeal  until  1830,  when  impaired  health  compelled  him  to  resign  his  charge  as 
principal,  though  he  remained  a  director,  and  always  felt  a  lively  interest  in  its 
welfare.  After  a  brief  cessation  from  labor,  he  commenced  the  preparation  of 
several  works  designed  for  educational  purposes ;  and  wherever  a  field  of  Chris- 
tian philanthropy  called  for  a  laborer,  there  he  was  found,  a  willing  worker. 

In  the  Summer  of  1838,  Mr.  Gallaudet  became  chaplain  of  the  Connecticut 
Retreat  for  the  Insane,  at  Hartford,  and  in  that  important  duty  he  labored  with 
abundant  useful  results,  until  the  last.  He  died  at  Hartford  on  the  9th  of  Sep- 
tember, 1851,  at  the  age  of  about  sixty-four  years.  His  name  is  a  synonym 
of  goodness  and  benevolence.  A  handsome  monument  to  his  memory  was 
erected  near  the  Asylum  building,  at  Hartford,  in  1854,  wholly  by  contributions 
of  deaf  mutes  in  the  United  States.  The  designer  and  architect  were  both 
deaf  mutes. 


ELIJAH    HEDDINO. 

ONE  of  the  most  useful  and  beloved  of  the  ministers  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  in  America,  was  Elijah  Hedding,  D.D.,  who,  for  almost  thirty  years, 
was  one  of  its  chief  pastors,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death  the  senior  bishop  of 
that  church.  He  was  born  in  the  town  of  Pine  Plains,  Dutchess  county,  New 
York,  on  the  7th  of  June,  1780.  His  good  mother  taught  him  to  know  and  love 
God,  and  at  the  age  of  four  years  he  could  pray  understandingly.  During  his 
boyhood,  the  celebrated  Benjamin  Abbott  was  on  the  Dutchess  Circuit,  and 
under  his  powerful  preaching  the  zeal  of  Elijah's  mother  was  fired,  and  she  bo- 
came  an  earnest  Methodist.2  She  loved  the  communion  of  that  people,  and  her 
heart  was  greatly  rejoiced  when  her  son  took  delight  in  her  Christian  way  of 
life. 

In  1791,  the  family  removed  to  Vermont,  and  at  the  age  of  eighteen  years, 
young  Hedding  made  an  open  profession  of  Christianity,  and  joined  the  Methodist 

1.  It  soon  became  the  asylum  for  all  New  England  ;  and  the  several  legislatures,  except  that  of  Rhode 
Island,  made  appropriations  for  its  support.     The  second  institution  of  the  kind  was  established  in  Ihe 
city  of  New  York,  iu  1818.     The  American  system,  as  that  of  Mr.  Gallaudet  (an  improvement  on  the 
French)  was  called,  was  not  adopted  there  until  Dr.  Harvey  P.  Peet,  a  teacher  at  Hariford,  became  a  tutor 
in  that  institution.    Dr.  Peet  has  been  at  the  head  of  the  New  York  Asylum  many  years,  and  has  managed 
its  affairs  with  eminent  success.    There  are  now  about  a  dozen  institutions  for  the  instruction  of  the 
Deaf  and  Dumb,  in  the  United  States,  and  all  employ  the  system  introduced  by  Mr.  Gallaudet.     There 
are  now  [1855]  full  ten  thousand  Deaf  and  Dumb  persons  in  the  United  States.     There  is  one  in  the  Asy- 
lum at  Hartford  (Julia  Brace)  who  is  also  blind.    She  lost  these  several  senses  by  sickness,  when  she 
was  four  years  of  age.     She  continued  to  talk  some  for  about  a  year,  and  the  word  she  was  longest  per- 
mitted to  speak,  was  the  tender  one  of  mother.     In  the  Blind  and  Deaf  Asylum  in  Boston,  is  a  young 
woman  (Laura  Bridgman)  whose  history  possesses  the  most  thrilling  interest.     She  was  born  puny  and 
sickly,  in  Hanover,  New  Hampshire,  in  1829,  and  by  severe  disease  she  lost  both  .tight  and  hearini/  be- 
fore she  was  two  years  of  age.     When  her  health  was  restored,  she  had  almost  entirely  lost  the  senses  of 
taste  and  smell  !    As  she  grew  to  girlhood  she  evinced  a  strong  mind,  but  oh  I  in  what  silence  and  dark- 
ness was  she  enveloped  !    In  1837,  Dr.  Howe  took  her  to  his  Asylum  in  Boston,  and  successfully  at- 
tempted the  developement  of  her  intellect,  at  the  age  of  eight  years.     We  have  not  space  to  speak  of  her 
acquirements.    They  are  wonderful  indeed  ;  and  that  poor  girl  seems  to  live  in  an  atmosphere  of  ex- 
quisite enjoyment.     Her  moral  faculties  have  full  play,  and  she  is  a  loving  and  lovely  creature. 

2.  The  mother  of  the  writer  once  mentioned  a  circumstance  that  occurred  in  the  ministry  of  Mr.  Ab- 
bott, which  was  witnessed  by  herself.     On  a  sultry  afternoon,  a  heavy  thunder-shower  occurred  while 
Mr.  Abbott  was  preaching  at  the  little  hamlet  of  Beekmanville.     When  his  discourse  was  about  half 
finished,  lightning  struck  the  building,  with  a  terrible  crash.     The  preacher  stopped,  and,  with  a  calm 
voice,  said,  "  When  God  speaks,  let  man  hold  his  peace,"  and  then  sat  down. 


ELIJAH  HEDDINGr.  383 


Church.  In  the  Summer  of  1*799,  he  became  a  local  preacher,  as  those  who  are 
licensed  to  exhort  are  called,  and  labored  partly  in  Vermont  and  partly  in  Can- 
ada, on  a  circuit  just  vacated  by  the  eccentric  Lorenzo  Dow.  In  the  Spring  of 
1800,  he  was  licensed  to  preach;  and  in  June,  the  following  year,  he  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  New  York  annual  conference  as  a  travelling  preacher,  on  proba- 
tion. His  itinerant  labors  were  very  great.  The  circuits  often  embraced  almost 
a  wilderness,  requiring  journeys  from  two  hundred  to  five  hundred  miles,  to  be 
made  in  the  space  of  from  two  to  six  weeks,  while  every  day  a  sermon  was  to 
be  preached  and  a  class,  met.  Mountains  were  climbed;  swamps  and  rivers 
wore  forded ;  tangled  forests  were  thridded ;  and  in  sunshine  or  in  storm,  the 
travelling  preacher  went  on  in  his  round  of  duty.  Privations  were  cheerfully 
suffered ;  and  as  those  messengers  of  glad  tidings  went  on  their  way,  the  forests 
were  made  vocal  with  their  hymns.  In  severe  and  earnest  labors  for  the  real 
good  of  souls,  the  Methodist  Church  is  preeminent. 

For  a  time  Mr.  Hedding  was  stationed  on  the  Plattsburg  circuit,  which  ex- 
tended along  the  western  shore  of  Lake  Champlain,  far  into  Canada.  Then  he 
took  a  circuit  on  the  east  side  of  the  lake,  extending  back  to  the  Green  Moun- 
tains. After  two  years  of  hard  service,  in  this  way,  he  was  ordained  a  Deacon, 
in  1803,  and  was  sent  to  a  circuit  in  New  Hampshire.  There  he  labored  in- 
tensely until  his  health  gave  way.  He  arose  from  the  borders  of  the  grave,  after 
being  ill  eight  months,  with  a  constitution  much  shattered,  but  a  soul  burning 
with  more  intense  zeal  for  the  Gospel,  than  before.  His  labors  were  highly 
esteemed;  and,  in  1805,  he  was  ordained  an  Elder,  by  Bishop  Asbury.  Two 
years  afterward  he  became  a  presiding  elder;  and  he  performed  the  duties  of 
that  office  with  great  ability  and  dignity.  Plain  in  speech  and  earnest  in  man- 
ner, his  preaching  always  seemed  accompanied  with  the  demonstrations  of  the 
spirit,  and  revivals  every  where  attended  his  ministrations.  Yet  in  all  his  labors 
he  won  no  earthly  gain.  During  ten  years,  his  average  cash  receipts  were  only 
forty-Jive  dollars  a  year !  Yet  he  says  the  sisters  were  kind  to  him,  for  they 
put  patches  upon  the  knees  of  his  pantaloons,  and  often  turned  an  old  coat  for 
him. 

From  1810  until  1824,  Mr.  Hedding's  field  of  ministerial  labor  was  in  New 
England.  At  the  general  conference,  in  1824,  he  was  elevated  to  the  office  of 
Bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  was  ordained,  by  the  imposition 
of  hands,  on  the  28th  of  May,  of  that  year.  "With  great  humility,  but  with  un- 
wavering faith  in  the  sustaining  grace  of  God,  he  entered  with  zeal  upon  tho 
responsible  duties  of  the  prelacy;  and  during  the  first  eight  years  of  his  epis- 
copal life,  he  presided  over  fifty-two  conferences,  extending  over  the  whole 
Union.  That  was  a  most  interesting  period  in  tho  history  of  Methodism  in 
America,  and  no  man  contributed  more  to  its  growth  and  respectability,  than 
Bishop  Hedding.  When  he  commenced  his  ministerial  labors,  in  the  year  1 800, 
the  Methodist  Church  in  the  United  States  and  Canada  numbered  less  than 
seventy-three  thousand  members;  when  he  left  the  field,  in  1852,  that  member- 
ship had  swollen  to  over  a  million  and  a  quarter. 

In  1832,  Bishop  Hedding  was  at  the  door  of  death;  but  he  was  spared  to  tho 
church  twenty  years  longer.  After  1844,  his  bodily  infirmities  abridged  his 
sphere  of  active  labor,  yet  he  continued  to  be  the  oracle  of  wisdom  when  advice 
was  needed.  His  last  episcopal  services  were  performed  in  1850.  Then  he  sat 
down  in  his  pleasant  residence  at  Poughkeepsie,  and  in  the  midst  of  much  bodily 
suffering,  he  waited  to  be  called  home.  The  message  came  on  the  9th  of  April, 
1852,  and  his  spirit  went  joyfully  to  the  presence  of  the  great  Head  of  the  Church 
in  earth  and  heaven. 


384 


STEPHEN   OLIN. 


STEPHEN    OLIN. 

WE  have  few  records  in  human  history  more  touching  and  insturctivo  than 
that  of  the  ministerial  labors  of  the  Eeverend  Dr.  Olin,  one  of  the  brightest 
luminaries  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  who  was  continually  struggling 
with  great  bodily  infirmity  while  engaged  in  arduous  toils.  The  possessor  of  a 
huge  frame  more  than  six  feet  in  height,  he  had  all  the  appearance  of  an  iron 
man,  outwardly,  but  from  earliest  years  that  frame  was  weak  and  deceptive. 

Stephen  Olin  was  born  in  Leicester,  Vermont,  on  the  2d  of  March,  1797.  His 
father,  a  descendant  of  one  of  the  earlier  settlers  of  Rhode  Island,  was  success- 
ively a  State  legislator,  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Vermont,  Member  of  Con- 
gress and  Lieutenant  Governor.  Stephen  was  carefully  educated,  chiefly  at  homo 
under  the  direction  of  his  father,  and  at  the  age  of  fifteen  years  he  commenced 
teaching  a  village  school.  His  father  designed  him  for  the  profession  of  the 
law,  and  he  was  placed  under  legal  instruction  in  Middlebury,  Vermont.  Ho 
yearned  to  enter  the  College  there,  for  he  soon  perceived  that  his  education  was 
not  sufficient  for  success  in  professional  life.  He  finally  told  his  father  that  ho 
was  willing  to  return  to  labor  on  the  farm,  but  he  was  unwilling  to  be  "  half  a 
lawyer."  The  hint  was  sufficient,  and  Judge  Olin  placed  his  son  in  Middlebury 
College,  at  the  age  of  nineteen  years.  He  was  an  apt  scholar,  and  was  graduat- 
ed with  highest  honors. 


STEPHEN"   OLIN.  385 


Although  he  was  of  large  frame,  ho  felt  much  physical  weakness  on  leaving 
College.  The  South  presenting  a  field  for  its  recovery,  he  went  thither  in  1820, 
and  became  a  teacher  in  a  Seminary  in  Abbeville  District,  South  Carolina,  which 
was  located  in  a  rude  log-cabin.  He  boarded  in  the  family  of  an  exemplary 
"  local"  Methodist  preacher,  and  became  a  converted  man.  With  the  joy  of  re- 
ligious impressions  came  a  desire  to  spread  the  glad  tidings  of  Christianity,  and 
abandoning  all  idea  of  becoming  a  lawyer,  he  assumed  the  duties  and  privations 
of  a  Methodist  preacher,  in  1822.  Ho  was  soon  afterward  invited  to  a  professor- 
ship in  the  college  at  Middlebury,  but  declined  it,  because,  notwithstanding  his 
fjeblo  health  would  not  allow  him  to  enter  upon  the  itineracy,  he  could  not  give 
up  his  devotion  to  Methodism  and  its  ministry.  In  1824,  he  was  stationed  in 
Charleston,  in  the  travelling  connection,  where  he  labored  zealously.  Ill  health 
demanded  relaxation,  and  ho  visited  his  friends  in  Vermont,  after  an  absence  of 
four  years.  In  the  Autumn  of  1824,  he  travelled  back  to  Charleston  on  horse- 
back. 

In  1825,  Mr.  Olin  became  editor  of  the  Wesleyan  Journal,  assisted  by  the  late 
Bishop  Capers,  but  his  health  would  not  allow  him  to  conduct  it  as  he  desired, 
and  he  became  only  an  occasional  contributor.  In  1826,  he  was  chosen  Pro- 
fessor of  belles-lettres  in  Franklin  College,  at  Athens,  Georgia,  and  soon  after 
entering  upon  his  duties  there  he  was  married  to  a  beautiful  and  exemplary 
young  lady.  At  about  the  same  time,  he  was  ordained  an  elder  in  the  Method- 
ist Episcopal  Church.  He  soon  afterward  made  another  visit  to  his  native 
State,  and  then  resided  in  Virginia  for  some  time,  all  the  while  suffering  from 
disease.  In  1834,  he  attended  the  conference  at  Charleston,  where  he  was 
greeted  with  much  love  ;  and  the  same  year  three  Colleges  conferred  upon  him 
the  honorary  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity. 

Dr.  Olin  was  active  for  the  benefit  of  Randolph  Macon  College  in  Georgia, 
and  was  chosen  its  president ;  but  ill  health  compelled  him  to  relinquish  that 
field  of  useful  endeavor.  In  the  Summer  of  1837,  he  went  to  Europe  with  his 
wife,  and  after  spending  some  time  on  the  continent  and  in  the  British  Isles,  ho 
went  to  Greece,  Egypt,  and  the  Holy  Land.  During  his  journeyings,  he  suf- 
fered several  attacks  of  severe  illness,  and  finally  ho  returned  home  in  tho 
Autumn  of  1840.  He  had  been  elected  President  of  the  Wesleyan  University 
at  Middletown,  Connecticut,  to  fill  the  place  of  the  deceased  Dr.  Fiske,  but  his 
feeble  health  would  not  permit  him  to  accept  tho  appointment.  In  1842,  his 
strength  seemed  to  warrant  him  in  accepting  an  urgent  call  to  that  institution,  and 
he  became  its  President.  He  suffered  much;  and  in  the  Winter  of  1842-3,  ho 
withdrew  from  active  duty  there,  and  passed  the  time  in  the  house  of  his  friend, 
Fletcher  Harper,  of  New  York,  where  he  revised  the  proof-sheets  of  his  Travels 
ii  the  East.  That  interesting  work  was  published  in  two  volumes  the  ensuing 
season. 

In  the  troubles  between  the  Methodists  North  and  South,  occasioned  by  tho 
slavery  question,  Dr.  Olin  was  eminently  a  peace-maker,  and  commanded  the 
highest  respect  of  both  parties.  Gladly  would  his  brethren  have  honored  him 
with  the  office  of  Bishop,  but  his  feeble  health  denied  to  him  the  privilege  of 
such  hard  labor.  He  worked  on  and  suffered  on  ;  and  in  the  Autumn  of  1845, 
he  made  another  trip  to  Europe,  but  of  short  duration.  On  his  return  he  be- 
came a  zealous  member  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  but  his  feebleness  now  be- 
came more  and  more  general.  Yet  he  travelled,  and  preached,  and  wrote  much, 
until  the  Summer  of  1851,  when  at  Middletown,  he  was  compelled  to  put  off  the 
armor  of  a  brave  soldier  in  the  Church  militant,  and  prepare  for  communion 
with  the  Church  triumphant.  His  spirit  departed  for  that  blessed  community  on 
the  morning  of  the  16th  of  August,  1851,  when  he  was  in  the  fifty-fifth  year  of 
his  age. 

17 


386  HENRY   INMAN. 


HENRY    INMAN. 

ART,  literature,  and  social  life,  were  all  widowed  by  the  death  of  Henry  In- 
man,  one  of  the  most  gifted  men  of  our  century.  Wordsworth  pronounced 
him  the  most  decided  man  of  genius,  he  had  ever  seen  from  America ;  and  our 
own  Bryant  has  said  of  him  that  "  he  was  no  less  beloved  as  a  friend,  than  ad- 
mired as  a  painter ;  that  his  social  qualities  were  of  the  richest  order,  and  al- 
though he  seldom  indulged  in  rhyme,  his  conversation  and  letters  were  often 
instinct  with  the  spirit  of  poetry."  That  child  of  genius  was  born  in  Utica, 
New  York,  then  a  beautiful  little  village  in  the  upper  valley  of  the  Mohawk,  on 
the  20th  of  October,  1801.  His  talent  for  drawing  was  evinced  at  a  very  early 
age,  and  his  father,  who  had  a,  taste  for  the  beautiful  in  nature  or  in  art,  warmly 
encouraged  it.  An  itinerant  teacher  of  drawing  gave  the  lad  some  lessons  in 
the  science,  but  ho  did  not  enter  even  the  vestibule  of  the  great  temple  in  which 
he  was  afterward  such  a  distinguished  worshipper,  until  the  removal  of  his 
family  to  the  city  of  New  York,  in  1812.  While  under  the  care  of  an  element- 
ary teacher  there,  his  superior  talent  attracted  the  attention  of  John  Wesley 
Jarvis,  then  in  the  zenith  of  his  fame  as  the  best  living  portrait  painter  in 
America,  except  Stuart.  Young  Inman  was  then  about  thirteen  years  of  age, 
and  his  father  had  just  obtained  a  warrant  for  his  entrance  to  "the  Military 
Academy  at  West  Point.  Jarvis  invited  him  to  become  his  pupil.  The  father 
left  the  choice  to  his  son,  and  fortunately  for  art  he  chose  to  be  a  painter.  A 
bargain  for  a  seven  years'  apprenticeship  was  soon  concluded,  and  both  parties 
faithfully  fulfilled  their  engagements  during  that  time. 

Mr.  Inman  erected  his  easel  in  New  York,  in  1822,  as  a  portrait  and  miniature 
painter,  and  in  both  departments  of  the  art  he  was  eminently  successful,  from 
the  beginning.  Miniatures  pleased  him  best,  and  he  devoted  himself  almost  ex- 
clusively to  that  branch  of  art,  until  his  pupil,  Thomas  S.  Cummings,  (now  [1855] 
one  of  the  best  miniature  painters  in  America),  displayed  such  superior  rnerit  in 
that  line,  that  Inman  left  the  field  to  him.  Life-sized  portraits,  and  sketches  on 
Bristol  board,  now  occupied  his  attention,  and  he  labored  with  great  zeal  and 
assiduity.  In  1825,  when  the  National  Academy  of  Design  was  established  in 
New  York,  Mr.  Inman  was  elected  its  Vice-President,  and  held  that  office  until 
he  made  Philadelphia  his  residence.  After  prosecuting  his  vocation  there  for 
awhile,  with  great  success,  he  purchased  a  small  rural  estate  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Mount  Holly,  New  Jersey,  where  he  was  continually  engaged  in  his 
delightful  art.  There  he  produced  many  beautiful  compositions  in  landscape  and 
historical  painting,  copies  of  which  have  since  been  scattered  broadcast  over  the 
land  by  engraving.  In  1834  Mr.  Inman  returned  to  New  York,  His  health 
was  now  becoming  delicate,  yet  he  labored  incessantly,  and  with  the  highest  re- 
muneration ever  received  by  any  painter  in  this  country.  The  gorgeous  bubble 
of  speculation,  glowing  with  rainbow  hues,  fascinated  him,  and  in  an  evil  hour 
he  grasped  at  its  beauties.  Its  promises  all  vanished  in  thin  air,  and  in  1836  he 
found  himself  a  hopeless  bankrupt.  He  had  received  a  commission  from  Con- 
gress to  paint  a  picture  for  one  of  the  vacant  panels  in  the  Rotunda  of  the 
Federal  Capitol,  but  this  terrible  blow  deferred  his  labor  upon  it,  for  he  was 
obliged  to  work  hard  for  bread  for  his  growing  family.  He  had  already  received 
some  money  in  part  payment  for  the  work.  Because  he  did  not  go  forward  with 
that  public  commission  as  a  man  in  full  health  and  prosperity  might  have  done, 
slander  began  to  cast  its  venom  upon  his  spotless  fame.  His  noble  nature  was 
deeply  wounded,  and  his  disease  (an  enlargement  of  the  heart)  was  aggravated. 
Finally,  in  1844,  he  went  to  England,  hoping  to  regain  health  and  to  paint  his 


WILLIAM   MILLER.  387 


promised  picture  there.  But  his  hopes  were  soon  clouded,  and  he  returned  home 
to  die,  bringing  with  him  the  finest  of  all  the  trophies  of  his  genius — the  por- 
traits of  Wordsworth  and  Dr.  Chalmers.  He  continued  the  practice  of  his  art 
with  great  zeal  until  within  a  few  weeks  of  his  death.  That  event  occurred  on 
the  17th  of  January,  1846,  at  the  age  of  about  forty-four  years.  He  was,  at 
that  time,  President  of  the  Academy  of  Design,  and  after  his  death,  a  large  col- 
lection of  his  works  was  exhibited  for  the  benefit  of  his  family.  In  that  collec- 
tion there  were  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven  paintings. 


WILLIAM    MILLER. 

IN  all  ages  of  the  world  credulity  has  produced  strange  shapes  in  society. 
The  most  absurd  notions,  honestly  entertained  by  deluded  persons,  or  art- 
fully promulgated  by  wicked  impostors,  for  personal  benefit,  have  found  ardent 
supporters,  fired  with  martyr  zeal,  especially  when  the  dogma  was  arrayed  in 
the  mysterious  garb  of  a  religious  necessity.  Time  and  again  the  broad  mantle 
of  Christianity  has  been  used  to  cover  up  the  deformities  of  these  parasitical 
systems ;  and,  apparently  under  the  awful  sanctions  of  divine  revelation,  multi- 
tudes have  "  believed  a  lie."  In  our  day,  the  peculiar  doctrines  concerning  the 
second  personal  appearance  of  Jesus  upon  earth,  known  as  Millerism,  have  had 
a  more  wide-spread  and  disastrous  influence  than  any  other,  except  that  of  the 
wicked  and  obscene  system  of  Mormonism.  The  author  of  Millerism,  familiarly 
known,  like  the  founder  of  Mormonism,  as  The  Prophet,  was  William  Miller,  a 
plain,  uneducated,  religious  zealot,  who  was  born  in  Pittsfield,  Massachusetts,  in 
1771.  Of  his  early  life  wo  have  no  important  record.  He  seems  not  to  have 
been  distinguished  from  his  fellow-men  by  anything  remarkable,  except  that  ho 
was  an  honest  man  and  good  citizen. 

When  war  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  was  kindled  in  1812, 
Mr.  Miller  was  captain  of  a  company  of  volunteers  on  the  northern  frontier,  and 
did  good  service  at  Sacketts  Harbor,  Williamsburg  and  Plattsburg.  When  peace 
came  he  resumed  his  farm  labors,  and  we  hear  nothing  more  of  him  until  about 
1826,  when,  almost  simultaneously  with  Joe  Smith's  annunciation  of  his  pre- 
tended visions,  Mr.  Miller  began  to  promulgate  his  peculiar  views  concerning 
prophecy.  It  was  not  until  1833,  that  ho  commenced  his  public  ministry  on  the 
subject  of  the  approaching  Millennium.  Then  he  went  forth  from  place  to  place 
throughout  the  Northern  and  Middle  States,  boldly  proclaiming  the  new  inter- 
pretation of  Scripture,  and  declaring  that  Christ  would  descend  in  clouds,  tho 
true  saints  would  be  caught  up  into  tho  air,  and  tho  earth  would  be  purified  by 
fire,  in  1843.  No  doubt  the  aged  zealot  was  sincere.  He  labored  with  great 
fervor ;  and  during  the  ten  years  of  his  ministry  he  averaged  a  sermon  every 
two  days.  As  the  time  for  the  predicted  consummation  of  all  pio^hecy  ap- 
proached, his  disciples  rapidly  increased.  Hundreds  and  thousands  embraced 
his  doctrine,  withdrew  from  church-fellowship,  and  banded  together  as  The 
Church  of  Latter  Day  Saints.  Other  preachers  appeared  in  the  field.  The  press 
was  diligently  employed ;  and  an  alarming  paper,  called  The  Midnight  Cry,  was 
published  in  New  York,  embellished,  sometimes,  with  pictures  of  hideous  beasts, 
and  the  image  seen  by  the  Babylonian  Emperor  in  his  dream ;  at  others  with 
representations  of  benignant  angels.  The  office  of  that  publication  was  the 
head-quarters  of  the  deluded  sect,  and  the  receptacle  of  a  large  amount  of  money 
continually  and  bountifully  contributed  by  the  disciples,  even  up  to  the  very 


388  JAMES   KNOX  POLK. 

evening  before  "  the  last  day,"  in  the  Autum  of  1843.'  The  excitement  became 
intense.  Many  gave  up  business  weeks  before.  Some  gave  away  their  property 
to  the  managers  of  the  solemn  drama.  Families  were  beggard,  and  scores  of 
weak  men  and  women  were  made  insane  by  excitement,  and  became  inmates 
of  mad  houses.  The  appointed  day  passed  by.  The  earth  moved  on  in  its  ac- 
customed course  upon  the  great  highway  of  the  ecliptic.  The  faith  of  thou- 
sands gave  way,  and  infidelity  poured  its  slimy  flood  over  the  wrecks.  And 
these  were  many — very  many.  Full  thirty  thousand  people  embraced  the  doctrine 
of  Miller,  and  had  unbounded  faith  in  his  interpretation  of  all  prophecy.  Alas  ! 
who  shall  estimate  the  desolation  of  true  religion  in  the  hearts  of  that  multitude, 
when  the  delusion  vanished  like  a  dream  at  dawn  ?  In  the  course  of  a  few 
weeks  the  excitement  subsided,  and  soon  the  rushing  torrent  of  delusion  dwin- 
dled into  an  almost  imperceptible  rill.  Mr.  Miller  acknowledged  his  error,  and 
seldom  preached  about  the  Millennium.  He  died  at  Hampton,  Washington 
County,  New  York,  on  the  29th  of  December,  1849,  at  the  age  of  sixty-eight 
years. 


JAMES    KNOX    POLK. 

MECKLENBURG-  COUNTY,  in  North  Carolina,  was  settled  chiefly  by  Scotch- 
Irish  and  their  descendants,  and  when  the  "War  for  Independence  broke 
out,  the  people  of  that  section  were  so  zealous  and  active  in  the  cause  of  popular 
liberty,  that  Mecklenburg  was  called  The  Hornets  Nest.  Among  the  energetic 
patriots  who  led  the  rebellion  there,  were  the  relatives  of  James  Knox  Polk,  the 
eleventh  President  of  the  United  States.  He  was  born  in  that  Hornets  Nest,  on 
the  2d  of  November,  1795,  and  was  the  eldest  of  ten  children.  .  His  father  was 
an  enterprising  farmer,  and  a  warm  supporter  of  Jefferson.  When  James  was 
eleven  years  of  age,  his  family  removed  from  Mecklenburg  to  the  wilderness,  on 
the  banks  of  a  branch  of  the  Cumberland  river,  in  Tennessee,  and  there  the  future 
President  passed  the  greater  portion  of  his  life.  The  wilderness  disappeared  before 
the  hand  of  cultivation,  and  that  portion  of  Tennessee  became  famous  for  its 
productiveness. 

After  acquiring  a  fair  English  education,  James  was  placed  with  a  merchant 
to  bo  fitted  for  commercial  life.  The  pursuit  was  not  congenial  to  his  taste,  and 
after  some  preparatory  studies,  he  entered  the  University  of  North  Carolina,  in 
the  Autumn  of  1815,  to  be  educated  for  a  professional  life.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  students  in  that  institution,  and,  at  the  end  of  three  years,  he 
was  graduated  with  the  highest  honors.  His  character  in  after  life  was  fore- 
shadowed there ;  for  he  never  missed  a  recitation,  nor  omitted  the  punctilious 
performance  of  his  duty.  At  the  beginning  of  1819,  he  commenced  the  study 
of  law  with  Felix  Grundy;  and,  in  1820,  was  admitted  to  the  bar.  He  had 
suffered  feeble  health  from  childhood,  but  the  energies  of  his  mind  overcame  the 
infirmities  of  his  body,  and  he  soon  arose  to  the  front  rank  in  his  profession. 
His  talent  and  urbanity  won  him  many  friends;  and,  in  1823,  he  was  elected  to 

1.  During  the  Summer  and  early  Autumn  of  1843,  the  pencil  and  graver  of  the  writer  were  frequently 
brought  into  requisition  in  making  illustrative  pictures  for  the  Arch  Saints  of  the  new  faith,  who  em- 
ployed the  press.  At  sunset,  on  the  evening  previous  to  "  the  last  day"  a  person  connected  with  The 
Midnight  Cry,  came  rushing  into  my  studio  in  hot  haste,  and  anxiously  implored  me  to  draw  and  en- 
grave two  flying  angels  with  trumpets,  before  eleven  o'clock  that  night,  for  the  last  hours  for  doing  good 
on  earth  were  rapidly  passing  away.  The  •'  commission"  was  executed  in  time.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  appearance  of  the  dozen  men  in  the  office  of  the  Cry,  when  I  handed  the  little  pictures  to  the  pub- 
lisher, and  received  my  pay  without  being  asked  for  a  "  bill  of  particulars."  It  was  a  "  serious  family" 
indeed ;  yet  there  appeared  to  be  one  or  two  Aminidab  Sleek's  among  them,  who,  like  Judas,  had  charge 
of  the  treasury  bag,  and  evidently  expected  to  have  a  place  in  the  next  census. 


JAMES   KNOX   POLK. 


389 


a  seat  in  the  legislature  of  Tennessee.  As  a  warm  personal  and  political  friend 
of  General  Jackson,  he  was  chiefly  instrumental  in  drawing  him  from  his  retire- 
ment, and  electing  him  a  United  States  Senator.  In  August,  1825,  Mr.  Polk, 
then  thirty  years  of  age,  was  chosen  a  representative  in  the  Federal  Congress, 
where  lie  was  distinguished  for  his  faithfulness  in  every  thing,  and  as  a  demo- 
cratic republican  of  the  strictest  stamp.  He  took  a  position  of  highest  respect, 
at  once,  and  was  one  of  the  most  efficient  opposers  of  the  administration  of  Pres- 
ident Adams.  Year  after  year  he  was  continued  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  by  the  suffrage  of  his  admiring  constituents.  As  chairman  of 
important  committees,  he  was  indefatigable  in  labor  and  careful  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  reports.  He  took  sides  with  President  Jackson  against  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  at  the  beginning,  and  was  one  of  its  most  powerful  enemies  in 
the  popular  branch  of  the  Federal  legislature.  His  course  arrayed  against  him 
the  friends  of  the  Bank,  and  efforts  were  made  to  defeat  his  reelection.  But  he 
was  always  triumphant.  In  1835,  he  was  elected  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  and  was  reflected  in  1837.  Never  was  the  presiding  officer 
of  that  body  more  vigorously  assailed  and  annoyed  than  Mr.  Polk,  yet  with  dig- 
nified equanimity  he  kept  on  consistently  in  his  course  of  duty,  and  the  House 
thanked  him  for  his  services. 

After  a  service  in  Congress  of  fourteen  years,  Mr.  Polk  declined  a  reelection, 
in  1839,  and  the  same  year  he  was  elected  governor  of  Tennessee  by  a  very  largo 


390  LEONARD  WOODS. 


majority.  He  was  nominated  for  Viee-President  of  the  United  States,  with  Mr. 
Van  Buren,  but  they  were  defeated  by  Harrison  and  Tyler,  by  an  unprecedented 
majority.  He  was  an  unsuccessful  candidate  for  governor  of  Tennessee,  in  1841, 
and  also  in  1843;  and  from  that  time  until  his  elevation  to  the  Presidency  of 
the  United  States,  in  1845,  he  remained  in  private  life.  His  administration  of 
four  years  was  a  stormy  one,  and  included  the  period  of  the  Mexican  war,  the 
excitements  incident  to  the  Oregon  boundary  question,  and  the  finding  of  gold 
in  California.  His  administration  will  be  looked  back  to  as  a  brilliant  one.  It 
is  yet  too  early  to  judge  of  its  permanent  effects  upon  the  commonwealth.  The 
verdict  must  be  awarded  by  another  generation. 

President  Polk  retired  from  office  in  March,  1849,  and  died  at  his  residence 
at  Nashville,  Tennessee,  on  the  15th  of  June  following,  at  the  age  of  fifty-four 
years. 


LEONARD    WOODS. 

"  "BLESSED  are  the  peace-makers,  for  they  shall  be  called  the  children  of  God." 
-D  So  spake  the  Head  of  the  Church ;  and  the  fulfilment  of  that  promise 
was  eminently  exemplified  in  the  person  of  Leonard  Woods,  D.D.,  the  father  of 
the  Andover  Theological  Seminary.  In  the  history  of  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
in  New  England,  he  appears  prominent  as  a  peace-maker,  at  a  time  when  con- 
tention about  unessential  points  of  doctrine  and  discipline  menaced  their  unity ; 
and  all  over  the  Union  he  was  intimately  known  and  loved  as  a  "  child  of  God." 
Leonard  Woods  was  born  in  Princeton,  Massachusetts,  on  the  19th  of  June, 
1*774,  and,  like  the  infant  Franklin,  he  was  baptized  on  the  day  of  his  birth.  He 
was  educated  at  Harvard  University,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1796,  Ho 
taught  school  at  Medford,  for  a  while ;  and  after  studying  theology  under  Dr. 
Backus,  of  Connecticut,  for  three  months,  he  entered  the  Christian  ministry,  by 
ordination  at  West  Newbury,  in  1798.  At  that  time  there  was  a  warm  conten- 
tion between  Dr.  Morse,1  of  Charlestown,  and  Dr.  Spring,2  of  Newburyport,  the 
former  planting  his  foot  firmly  upon  the  Westminster  catechism  as  a  basis  of 
faith  for  individuals  as  well  as  for  the  General  Association,  and  the  latter  willing 
to  be  more  latitudinarian  in  both  faith  and  polity.  Dr.  Morse  promulgated  his 
views  in  the  Panoplist,  and  Dr.  Spring  gave  his  arguments  through  the  Mission- 
ary Magazine.  Mr.  Woods  was  known  as  a  vigorous  writer,  and  both  divines 
endeavored  to  secure  the  services  of  his  pen.  lie  wrote  for  the  Fanoplist,  and 
then  commenced  his  long  career  as  a  theologian. 

Mr.  Woods  soon  discovered  that  Drs.  Morse  and  Spring  had  each  projected  a 
theological  seminary,  without  the  knowledge  of  the  other,  and  that  each  had 
selected  the  same  locality.  The  comprehensive  and  benevolent  mind  of  Mr. 
Woods  immediately  devised  a  plan  to  fraternize  the  belligerents,  and  to  prevent 
the  great  evil  that  would  flow  from  the  establishment  of  two  seminaries  hold- 
ing conflicting  views.  He  applied  to  men  of  both  parties,  and  after  a  series 
of  negotiations  for  six  months,  carried  on  with  great  skill,  he  broke  down  the 
partition,  and  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  those  men  unite  in  founding  one  sem- 

1.  Rev.  Jedediah  Morse,  D.D.,  the  father  of  Professor  S.  F.  B.  Morse,  the  inventor  of  the  electro- 
magnetic telegraph.     Dr.  Morse  was  pastor  of  a  church  at  Charlestown  about  thirty -two  years,  and  died 
at  New  Haven,  in  June,  1826,  at  the  age  of  sixty -five  years.    He  was  the  first  American  author  of  a 
G-eography.    He  also  wrote  a  History  of  the  American  Revolution,  and  prepared  a  Gazetteer. 

2.  Rev.  Samuel  Spring,  D.D.,  was  some  sixteen  years  older  than  Dr.  Morse.    He  was  the  chaplain  of 
Arnold's  regiment,  in  the  expedition  from  the  Kennebec  to  the  St.  Lawrence,  in  1775.    He  was  the  father 
of  the  Rev.  Gardiner  Spring,  D.D.,  pastor  of  the  church  fronting  the  City  Hall  Park,  New  York.     He 
died  in  March,  1819,  aged  seventy-three  years. 


TIMOTHY   FLINT.  391 


inary,  their  respective  publications  merged  into  one,  and  the  General  Association 
placed  upon  a  firmer  basis  than  ever.  Andover  was  chosen  as  the  locality  for 
the  seminary,  and,  by  common  consent,  the  person  who  had  secured  the  happy 
union,  was  chosen  the  first  professor  in  the  new  institution.  The  seminary  was 
founded  in  1808,  and  the  same  year  he  was  inaugurated  Abbott  Professor  of 
Christian  Theology.  In  that  position  he  labored  until  1846,  a  period  of  thirty- 
eight  years,  when  he  resigned  its  duties  into  younger  hands,  and  was  made 
Emeritus  Professor  in  the  same  institution. 

Dr.  Woods  was  distinguished  for  his  zealous  encouragement  of  every  effort 
directed  to  the  promotion  of  morality  and  the  spread  of  the  Gospel.  "Within  the 
sphere  of  his  influence,  several  of  the  noblest  societies  of  our  day  had  their  ger- 
mination and  early  culture,  among  which  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners 
for  Foreign  Missions,  and  the  American  Tract  Society,  are  the  most  prominent. 
The  cause  of  Temperance.  Education,  Human  Freedom,  all  found  in  Dr.  Woods 
a  warm  and  judicious  friend.  After  his  retirement  from  the  seminary,  he  care- 
fully revised  his  theological  lectures  and  miscellaneous  works,  and  superintended 
their  publication,  in  five  volumes.  During  the  last  few  years  of  his  life  he  was 
engaged  in  writing  a  history  of  the  seminary  over  which  he  had  presided  so 
long.  It  was  almost  completed  at  the  time  of  his  death,  when,  according  to  his 
expressed  desire,  it  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  his  son,  to  be  completed  from 
materials  that  he  had  left,  and  then  published.  Dr.  Woods  died  at  Andover,  on 
the  24th  of  August,  1854,  at  the  ago  of  little  more  than  eighty  years.  The  simple 
inscription  for  the  stone  that  should  mark  his  grave  was  found  in  his  will. 


TIMOTHY    FLINT. 

YERY  few  men  in  private  life  have  engaged  so  large  a  share  of  public  atten- 
tion and  cordial  esteem  as  Timothy  Flint,  especially  in  the  Great  West, 
beyond  the  Alleghanies.  Though  bearing  the  heavy  burden  of  ill  health  for 
many  weary  years,  lie  labored  incessantly  in  the  inviting  fields  of  science,  lit- 
erature, and  history.  He  was  a  native  of  North  Eeading,  Massachusetts,  where 
ho  was  born  in  July,  1780.  He  was  graduated  at  Harvard  University,  in  1800, 
and  entered  immediately  upon  the  study  of  theology,  preparatory  to  assuming 
the  labors  of  a  gospel  minister.  Ho  became  pastor  of  a  Congregational  church 
at  Lunenburg,  in  his  native  State,  in  1802,  where  he  performed  his  responsible 
duties  with  fidelity  for  twelve  years.  In  the  meanwhile,  he  enriched  his  mind 
with  much  scientific  knowledge,  and  was  very  fond  of  philosophical  experiments. 
Some  ignorant  neighbors,  seeing  him  at  work  with  his  alembic  and  crucibles,  in 
chemical  experiments,  charged  him  with  the  crime  of  counterfeiting  coin.  In 
defence  of  his  character  he  prosecuted  the  slanderer.  Unpleasant  feelings  grew 
into  bitterness,  and  as  Mr.  Flint  differed  in  politics  from  most  of  his  congregation, 
who  were  Federalists  and  opposed  to  the  war  then  in  progress,  he  thought  it 
expedient  to  resign  his  pastoral  charge,  in  1814.  After  preaching  in  several 
parishes  in  Massachusetts  and  New  Hampshire,  he  accepted,  from  a  missionary 
society  in  Connecticut,  the  appointment  of  a  Gospel  laborer  in  the  Ohio  and 
Mississippi  valleys.  In  the  pleasant  month  of  September,  1815,  he  started  for 
the  Far  West,  with  his  wife  and  three  children,  in  a  two-horse  wagon.  For 
several  years  he  spread  the  glad  tidings  of  Christianity  over  Ohio,  Indiana,  Ken- 
tucky, and  Missouri,  when  he  resigned  his  mission,  tried  farming,  and,  with  the 
assistance  of  his  wife,  taught  several  pupils,  who  became  inmates  of  his  family. 
In  1822,  Mr.  Flint  and  his  family  went  down  the  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans. 


392  AMBKOSE   SPENCER. 

After  a  short  residence  near  the  borders  of  Lake  Pontchartrain,  he  went  to  Alex- 
andria, on  the  Red  River,  and  there  took  charge  of  a  collegiate  school.  His 
health  gave  way;  and,  in  1825,  he  went  to  the  North,  and  on  reaching  the 
house  of  a  friend  at  Salem,  Massachusetts,  greatly  emaciated,  he  told  him  he 
had  come  there  to  die.  The  change  of  climate  was  beneficial,  and  while  under 
the  roof  of  that  friend  he  wrote  the  first  part  of  his  Recollections  of  Ten  Years1 
Residence  and  Travels  in  the  Mississippi  Valley.  It  was  published  in  1826,  and 
attracted  much  attention  throughout  the  United  States  and  Europe.  It  was 
republished  in  London,  and  parts  of  it  were  translated  and  published  in  Paris. 
With  renewed  health  he  joined  his  family  at  Alexandria,  in  the  Autumn  of  1826, 
and  then  commenced  writing  his  first  novel — Francis  Berrian,  or  the  Mexican 
Patriot.  He  again  went  to  New  England,  the  following  Spring,  published  his 
new  work,  and  returned  to  Alexandria,  in  the  Autumn.  In  1828,  he  removed 
to  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  where  he  remained  engaged  chiefly  in  literary  pursuits,  for 
almost  seven  years.  During  that  time  he  wrote  and  published  Arthur  Clavtr- 
ing ;  History  and  Geography  of  the  Western  States;  George  Mason,  or  the  Sack- 
woodsman  ;  and  Shoshonee  Valley.  He  edited  a  monthly  magazine,  entitled  The 
Western  Review,  for  three  years.  He  also  wrote  a  sketch  of  the  Life  of  Daniel 
Boone;  a  narrative  of  the  adventures  and  explorations  of  a  pioneer  named  Pattie; 
and  compiled  a  History  of  the  Indian  Wars  of  the  West.  In  1833,  Mr.  Flint  re- 
moved to  New  York  city,  and  became  editor  of  the  Knickerbocker  Magazine,  but 
ill  health  compelled  him  to  relinquish  it  before  the  end  of  that  year.  He  soon 
afterward  went  to  Alexandria,  where  a  son  and  daughter  were  living,  and  there 
he  spent  a  greater  part  of  the  remainder  of  his  days.  His  Summers  were  passed 
in  New  England.  On  the  last  visit  to  his  friends  there,  he  took  with  hjm  the 
manuscript  of  the  second  part  of  his  Recollections  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  He 
died  at  the  house  of  one  of  his  friends  in  Salem,  on  the  16th  of  August,  1840,  at 
the  age  of  sixty  years.  "Of  a  genius  highly  imaginative  and  poetical,  he 
united  with  a  vigorous  intellect  and  discriminating  judgment  a  quick  sensibility, 
and  warm  affections,  a  vivid  perception  and  enjoyment,  a  deep-felt  and  ever 
grateful  recognition  of  the  Author  of  the  beautiful,  grand  and  lovely  in  nature, 
of  the  true  and  good,  the  elevated  and  pure,  the  brilliant  and  divinely-gifted  in 
human  endowments  and  character." 


AMBROSE     SPENCER. 

ONE  of  the  most  active  and  influential  of  the  jurists  and  politicians  of  the  State 
of  New  York,  was  Ambrose  Spencer,  a  native  of  Salisbury,  Connecticut, 
where  he  was  born  on  the  13th  of  December,  1765.  His  father  was  a  farmer 
and  mechanic,  yet  his  limited  pecuniary  means  did  not  prevent  his  exercise  of  a 
wise  discretion,  in  giving  his  two  sons,  Ambrose  and  Philip,  a  good  education. 
They  both  entered  Yale  College,  as  students,  in  the  Autumn  of  1779,  where 
they  remained  three  years,  and  after  studying  twelve  months  longer  at  Harvard 
University,  they  were  graduated  there  in  July,  1783.  Ambrose  was  then  only 
seventeen  years  and  six  months  old.  He  commenced  the  study  of  law  with 
John  Canfield,  of  Sharon,  and  completed  his  course  with  Mr.  Gilbert,  of  Hudson, 
New  York.  Before  he  was  nineteen  years  of  age,  he  married  a  daughter  of  his 
earliest  law  preceptor,  settled  at  Hudson,  and  commenced  the  practice  of  his 
profession  there.  The  clerkship  of  that  city  was  given  to  him,  in  1786;  and,  in 
1793,  he  was  elected  a  representative  of  Columbia  county  in  the  State  legislature. 
Two  years  afterward  he  was  elected  to  the  State  Senate,  for  three  years ;  and, 


HORATIO   GREENOUGH.  393 

in  1798,  was  reflected  to  the  same  office,  for  four  years.  In  the  meanwhile  he 
had  been  chosen  assistant  attorney-general  of  the  State,  for  the  counties  of  Co- 
lumbia and  Rensselaer;  and,  in  1802,  he  was  appointed  attorney -general.  At 
that  time  he  was  confessedly  at  the  head  of  the  bar  in  the  State  of  New  York, 
as  an  advocate,  counsellor,  and  jurist.  His  talents  were  appreciated ;  and,  in 
1804,  he  was  appointed  one  of  the  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  that  State. 
Although  he  was  always  remarkable  for  his  strict  attention  to  his  judicial 
business,  he  became  an  active  and  widely  potential  politician  of  the  demo- 
cratic school.  He  had  been  a  Federalist,  but  joined  the  Republican  party  at  an 
early  day  in  its  history.  He  and  Dewitt  Clinton  were  warm  personal  and  polit- 
ical friends  for  many  years,  and  acted  in  concert  in  the  Republican  party  until 
1812,  when  they  took  different  views  of  the  question  of  war  with  Great  Britain. 
Judge  Spencer  warmly  supported  President  Madison,  in  his  hostile  measures, 
and  in  his  own  State  he  labored  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  Governor  Tompkins 
in  opposition  to  a  great  moneyed  scheme.  At  that  time  ho  wielded  immense 
political  influence  in  his  State,  and  his  support  was  considered  so  important 
by  President  Madison,  that  Judge  Spencer  might  have  received  any  office  asked 
for,  in  the  gift  of  the  chief  magistrate. 

In  1819,  Judge  Spencer  was  raised  to  the  seat  of  chief  justice  of  the  State  of 
New  York,  but  retired  from  the  bench  in  1823,  and  resumed  the  practice  of  his 
profession  in  the  city  of  Albany.  In  1821,  he  was  a  representative  in  the  con- 
vention to  amend  the  constitution  of  the  State.  He  took  great  interest  in  its 
proceedings,  and  many  sections  of  the  new  instrument  bear  the  impress  of  his 
strong  practical  mind.  After  retiring  from  the  bench,  Judge  Spencer  was  mayor 
of  Albany,  filled  several  public  stations  in  his  own  State;  and,  in  1829,  was 
elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Federal  Congress,  where  he  served  two  years. 

For  many  years  toward  the  close  of  his  life  Judge  Spencer  was  deeply  engaged 
in  agricultural  pursuits,  in  the  vicinity  of  Albany.  He  left  these,  in  1839,  and 
made  his  residence  in  the  pleasant  village  of  Lyons,  in  Wayne  county.  In  1844, 
he  presided  at  the  Whig  National  Convention,  held  at  Baltimore,  when  Henry 
Clay  was  nominated  for  the  chief  magistracy  of  the  Republic.  His  last  public 
act  was  the  issuing  of  a  letter  to  his  fellow-citizens,  in  which  ho  opposed  the 
provision  of  the  new  constitution  of  the  State,  by  which  judges  were  made  elective 
by  the  people.  His  sands  of  life  were  now  almost  run  out;  and  on  the  13th  of 
March,  1848,  his  spirit  went  home,  when  he  was  in  the  eighty-third  year  of  his 
age. 


HORATIO    QREENOUGH. 

"  A  RT,  though  a  grand  and  beautiful,  is  not  a  universal  language,  and  when 
A.  her  gifted  votaries  are  also  priests  at  the  altar  of  humanit}^,  they  are 
doubly  mourned  and  honored."  Such  was  the  just  reflection  of  the  intimate 
personal  friend1  of  Greenough,  the  Sculptor,  expressed  in  closing  a  brief  memoir 
of  that  gifted  and  earth-lost  artist.  Throughout  life,  Greenough  was,  indeed, 
a  "priest  at  the  altar  of  humanity,"  for  his  noble  soul  was  the  eager  recipient  of 
all  good  impressions,  and  his  heart  and  hand  were  the  almoners  of  a  multitude  of 


1.  Henry  T.  Tuckerman,  Esq.,  whose  Memorial  of  Greenough,  published  by  Putnam  in  a  small  vol- 
ume, is  a  most  beautiful  tribute  of  a  warm  heart  to  the  memory  of  a  beloved  friend  and  brilliant  genius. 
That  little  volume  also  contains  many  of  the  literary  productions  of  the  artist,  and  tributes  of  others  to 
his  genius,  in  prose  and  verse.  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Tuckerman  for  the  accompanying  portrait.  The 
portrait  is  a  copy  of  a  fine  daguerreotype  from  life,  in  his  possession  :  and  to  his  Memorial  for  the  prin- 
cipal facts  in  this  sketch. 

17* 


394 


IIOKATIO   GREENOUGH. 


bounties.  Superior  to  all  jealousies,  he  recognized  no  rivals  in  art,  for  all  who 
loved  the  Good,  the  Beautiful  and  the  True,  were  loved  by  him  and  reciprocated 
that  love. 

Horatio  Greenough  was  born  in  Boston,  on  the  6th  of  September,  1805.  His 
father  was  one  of  those  enterprising  merchants  who,  at  the  commencement  of 
our  century,  held  highest  social  position  in  the  New  England  metropolis.  The 
home  of  the  gifted  child  of  whom  we  are  writing,  was  a  model  of  excellent  in- 
fluences, and  his  education  wajg  entrusted  to  the  most  eminent  instructors.  His 
genius,  and  his  taste  for  art,  were  developed  simultaneously  in  his  early  child- 
hood; and  hours  devoted  by  other  boys  in  romping  play,  were  employed  by  him 
in  carving  toys  for  his  companions,  the  implements  of  his  atelier  being  a  pencil, 
knife  and  scissors.  One  day  he  sat  upon  the  doorstep  of  a  neighbor,  and  with 
his  pen-knife  and  a  nail,  he  fashioned  from  plaster,  in  miniature  form,  the  head 
of  a  Roman,  copied  from  a  coin.  He  was  watched  by  the  lady  of  the  house, 
who  became  the  possessor  of  that  earliest  of  his  works  of  art,  and  in  after  years 
gave  him  his  first  commission.  For  her  he  produced  that  beautiful  ideal  bust, 
of  the  Genius  of  Love.  His  boyish  efforts  were  appreciated,  and  artists  and  arti- 
sans gave  him  aid  and  encouragement.  Librarians  lent  him  books,  and  he 
studied  and  wrought,  and  wrought  and  studied,  for  he  felt  irrepressible  desires 
to  express  his  ideas  in  tangible  art.  Yet  he  did  not  neglect  learning,  the  com- 
panion of  all  true  art ;  and  in  the  Academy  and  in  the  College,  he  was  always 


HORATIO   GREENOUGH.  395 

a  thoughtful,  assiduous  and  successful  student.  His  perceptions  were  active,  his 
memory  remarkably  attentive,'  and  his  thirst  for  knowledge  was  ardent.  His 
physical  developement  kept  pace  with  his  mental  activity,  and  he  excelled  in  all 
manly  exercises.  He  was  the  intimate  and  loving  friend  of  Allston  the  poet- 
painter,  and  they  became  as  one  in  sentiment  and  feeling,  for  their  souls  affiliated 
by  mutual  attraction.  •* 

Sometimes  Greenough  would  express  his  thoughts  in  Painting;  sometimes  in 
Poetry,  but  most  frequently  in  Sculpture.  To  the  latter  art  he  dedicated  his 
genius ;  and  soon  after  the  close  of  his  collegiate  studies,  he  went  to  Italy  as  a 
pupil  of  art  and  nature  there.  Ho  took  up  his  residence  in  Rome,  and  was  the 
first  American  student  of  art  who  made  the  Eternal  City  his  permanent  abiding 
place.  There  he  studied  and  wrought  in  a  far  higher  sphere  of  influence  and 
effort,  than  when  in  his  college  days.  There  he  enjoj^ed  the  friendship  of  Thor- 
walsden,  the  great  Danish  Sculptor ;  and  with  the  purest  of  our  living  painters,  Mr. 
Weir,  he  occupied  rooms  in  the  house  of  Claude,  on  the  Pincian  Hill.  The  sky 
bent  in  beauty  over  them,  but  from  the  Pontine  Marshes  came  a  deadly  malaria 
that  menaced  the  life  of  the  young  sculptor,  and  with  his  friend  and  brother 
artist,  he  returned  home.  His  health  was  soon  restored,  and  he  again  sailed  for 
Europe.  "While  tarrying  in  Paris,  the  generous  Cooper  was  his  friend ;  and  there 
he  executed  a  bust  of  La  Fayette,  more  truthful,  in  the  estimation  of  judges, 
than  that  of  the  same  subject  produced  by  the  eminent  David.  He  did  not  re- 
main long  in  Paris,  but  hastened  across  the  Alps,  and  took  up  his  abode  in  a 
somewhat  dreary  "palace"  near  the  Pinti  Gate.  Fora  long  time  he  waited 
there  for  a  commission.  Cooper  was  again  the  encouraging  friend,  and,  at  his 
request,  Greenough  produced  for  him  that  exquisite  group,  The  Chanting  Cherubs. 
That  work,  in  the  hands  of  such  a  zealous  possessor,  introduced  the  Sculptor  to 
his  countrymen,  and  his  successful  career  then  commenced. 

We  cannot,  in  this  brief  memoir,  follow  the  artist  in  all  his  pleasant,  laborious 
life,  from  the  modelling  of  his  Abel,  in  1826,  until  the  completion  of  The  Rescue, 
in  1851. 2  The  work  in  which  he  took  the  greatest  pride,  because  of  the  sub- 
ject, was  his  collossal  statue  of  Washington,  completed  in  1843,  and  now  oc- 
cupying the  public  square  eastward  of  the  Federal' Capitol.  He  executed  more 
than  twenty  other  ideal  groups  or  single  statues,  and  a  great  many  busts  of  living 
men,  but  that  will  be  his  chief  memorial  in  the  public  mind.  For  many  years  in 
Florence — beautiful,  classic  Florence — his  studio,  a  model  of  its  class,  was  on 
the  Piazza  Maria  Antonia ;  and  there  ha  dispensed  a  generous  but  unostenta- 
tious hospitality.  Finally,  in  the  Autumn  of  1851,  he  returned  to  his  native 
land,  ostensibly  to  erect  his.  group  of  The  Rescue,  but  really  to  breathe  again  the 
free  air  of  the  Republic.  He  chose  Newport  as  his  place  of  residence,  and  there 
he  resolved  to  erect  a  studio^  and  leave  his  country  no  more.  Ho  had  become 
acclimated  in  Italy,  and  the  changeful  seasons  -here  disturbed  him.  Here  ho 
lacked  the  quiet  social  routine  of  Florence.  All  around  him  was  activity  to 
which  he  had  not  been  accustomed,  and  his  whole  being  became  excited.  A 
brain  fever  ensued1,  and  after  a  few  days'  illness,  he  expired  in  the  bosom  of  his 
loving  family,  at  the  ago  of  little  more  than  forty-seven  years.  That  sad  event 
occurred  at  Newport,  on  the  18th  of  December,  1852.  So  perished  in  the  merid- 
ian of  his  life  and  fame,  a  noble,  kindly  and  generous  man  ;  and  an  artist  whose 
wcwks  form  a  part  of  the  rising  glory  of  our  country. 

1.  While  yet  a  mere  boy,  he  could  repeat  two  thousand  lines  of  English  verse,  without  error  or  hesi- 
tation. 

2.  This  is  a  colossal  group  ordered  by  Congress  for  the  Federal  OapitoL    It  consists  of  four  figures,  r, 
mother  and  child,  an  American  Indian  and  the  father.     It  is  intended  to  illustrate  the  unavoidable  con- 
flict between  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  aboriginal  races. 


396  HUGH   MEECER. —  ROBERT   M.  PATTERSON. 


HUGH    MERCEll. 

ON"  the  first  day  of  December,  1853,  Colonel  Hugh  Mercer,  the  foster-child  of 
the  Republic,  died  at  the  "  Sentry -Box,"  his  pleasant  residence,  near  Fred- 
ericksburg,  Virginia,  at  the  age  of  little  more  than  seventy-seven  years.  He 
was  a  son  of  the  brave  General  Hugh  Mercer,  who  was  mortally  wounded  in 
the  battle  at  Princeton,  on  the  morning  of  the  3d  of  January,  1777,  and  who  is  re- 
vered as  one  of  the  eminent  martyrs  of  liberty,  who  fought  for  American  Inde- 
pendence. That  brave  soldier  was  a  native  of  Scotland,  and  was  a  surgeon  on 
the  bloody  field  of  Culloden,  in  1745.  Ten  years  later  ho  was  the  companion- 
in-arms  of  Washington,  in  the  sanguinary  conflict  on  the  Monongahela,  where 
Braddock  was  killed;  and  when  another  ten  years  had  elapsed,  he  left  his 
apothecary  shop,  his  medical  practice,  and  his  beloved  family,  and  drew  his 
sword  for  the  liberties  of  his  adopted  country.  Sixty-three  days  after  he  had 
fallen  on  the  battle-field,  the  Continental  Congress  resolved  to  erect  a  monument 
to  his  memory,  in  Fredericksburg,  with  a  suitable  inscription ;  and  also  resolved, 
"That  the  eldest  son  of  General  Warren,1  and  the  youngest  son  of  General  Mer- 
cer, be  educated,  from  this  time,  at  the  expense  of  the  United  States." 

That  "youngest  son  of  General  Mercer"  was  the  subject  of  our  brief  memoir.'2 
He  was  born  at  Fredericksburg,  Virginia,  in  July,  1776.  His  mother  was  Isa- 
bella Gordon,  who  survived  her  martyred  husband  about  ten  years,  and  during 
that  time  made  an  indelible  impression  of  her  own  excellence  of  character  upon 
that  of  her  son.  He  was  educated  at  William  and  Mary  College,  in  Virginia, 
during  its  palmiest  days,  while  under  the  charge  of  the  good  Bishop  Madison. 
For  a  long  series  of  years  he  was  colonel  of  the  militia  of  his  native  county 
(Spottsylvania),  and  for  twenty  years  he  was  an  active  magistrate.  For  five 
consecutive  years  he  represented  his  district  in  the  Virginia  legislature,  when, 
preferring  the  sweets  of  domestic  life,  to  the  turmoils  of  politics  and  public  office, 
he  declined  a  reelection.  He  was  soon  afterward  chosen  president  of  the  branch 
bank  of  Virginia,  located  at  Fredericksburg,  and  held  that  situation  until  his 
death.  Throughout  his  long  life,  Colonel  Mercer  enjoyed  almost  uninterrupted 
health  until  a  short  time  before  his  departure.  Ho  was  greatly  beloved  by  those 
who  were  related  to  him  by  ties  of  consanguinity  or  friendship,  and  was  univer- 
sally esteemed  for  his  solid  worth  as  an  honorable,  energetic,  and  methodical 
business  man  and  superior  citizen.  He  was  one  of  the  few  noble  specimens  of 
the  Virginia  gentleman  of  the  old  school ;  and  was  the  last  survivor  of  the  mar- 
tyr's family,  which  consisted  of  four  sons  and  a  daughter. 


ROBERT    M.PATTERSON. 

ONE  of  the  most  illustrious  scientific  men  of  our  age  and  country,  was  Dr. 
Robert  M.  Patterson,  of  Philadelphia,  who  is  better  known  to  the  public  in 
general  as  the  accomplished  Director  of  the  United  States  Mint,  during  many  of 
the  latter  years  of  his  life.  He  was  a  son  of  Dr.  Robert  Patterson,  a  distin- 
guished professor  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  Director  of  the  Mint,  and 
President  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society,  all  of  which  stations  his  eminent 

1.  See  sketch  of  Joseph  Warren. 

2.  A  portrait  of  Colonel  Mercer  may  be  found  in  Lossing's  Pictorial  Field-Book  of  the  Revolution, 
page  668  of  the  second  edition. 


SARGEANT   S.  PRENTISS.  097 

son  afterward  filled.  That  son  was  born  in  Philadelphia,  in  1787,  was  educated 
at  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  at  an  early  age  was  graduated  there,  as 
a  physician.  He  pursued  medical  studies  in  Europe,  for  several  years,  and  re- 
turned to  his  native  city  in  1812,  with  the  intention  of  engaging  in  his  profession 
there.  Being  immediately  appointed  Professor  of  Natural  Philosophy  in  the 
medical  department  of  the  University,  and  soon  afterward  of  Mathematics  and 
Natural  Philosophy  in  the  classical  department,  he  was  diverted  from  practice. 
At  the  age  of  twenty-seven  years  he  was  elected  Vice- Provost  of  that  institution. 
Having  paid  much  attention  to  the  science  of  engineering,  he  was  invited  by  the 
Committee  of  Safety  of  Baltimore,  in  1813,  to  lay  out  and  superintend  the  con- 
struction of  fortifications  there,  the  city  being  menaced  by  the  British.  He  per- 
formed the  duty  so  satisfactorily,  that  he  won  a  public  vote  of  thanks. 

For  fourteen  years  Dr.  Patterson  remained  a  professor  in  the  University,  and 
was  always  distinguished  for  extensive  and  varied  scientific  attainments.  Other 
objects  of  taste  and  refinement  occupied  his  attention.  lie  was  one  of  the 
founders  and  most  efficient  officers  of  the  Franklin  Institute,  of  Philadelphia,  the 
pioneer  association,  of  its  kind,  in  this  country.  In  1820,  he  joined,  with  others, 
in  establishing  the  Musical  Fund  Society,  which  was  also  the  first  of  its  class, 
and  is  still  [1855]  a  rich  and  prosperous  institution.  He  was  its  president  for 
many  years,  and  its  most  efficient  member,  from  the  beginning.  The  American 
Philosophical  Society,  of  which  he  became  a  member  at  the  ago  of  twenty-one 
years,  was  his  favorite  institution,  and  after  the  death  of  the  eminent  Dr.  Chap- 
man, he  was  elected  its  president.  That  .chair,  so  worthily  filled  by  Dr.  Frank- 
lin, Rittenhouse,  Duponceau,  and  others,  was  as  worthily  occupied  by  Dr.  Pat- 
terson. 

In  1828,  Dr.  Patterson  accepted  an  invitation  to  occupy  the  chair  of  Natural 
Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Virginia.  After  seven  years'  service  there, 
President  Jackson  appointed  him  Director  of  the  United  States  Mint.  He  held 
that  responsible  station  during  several  administrations,  until  1851,  when  rapidly 
declining  health  compelled  him  to  resign.  .  He  was  then  President  of  the  Amer- 
ican Philosophical  Society,  and  of  the  Pennsylvania  Life  Annuity  Company ; 
also  Vice-President  of  the  Pennsylvania  Institution  for  the  Instruction  of  the 
Blind.  His  was  a  liberal  heart,  and  it  was  ever  devising  liberal  things.  Every 
impulse  of  his  nature  was  pure  and  benevolent,  and  every  scheme  having  for  its 
object  the  good  of  humanity  always  enlisted  his  sympathy,  and  his  hearty  co- 
operation. His  intercourse  with  society  was  exemplary  in  the  highest  degree, 
and  he  imparted  a  charm  to  every  social  circle  which  was  favored  by  his  presence. 
His  death,  which  occurred  in  Philadelphia,  on  the  5th  of  September,  1854,  was 
regarded  as  a  public  calamity,  for  a  man  of  great  usefulness  had  departed. 


SARGEANT    S.  PRENTISS. 

AN  intellectual  luminary  of  great  and  increasing  splendor  went  out  and  faded 
from  the  political  and  social  firmament,  when  Sargeant  S.  Prentiss  disap- 
peared from  earth,  on  the  ]st  of  July,  1850,  at  the  age  of  about  forty  years.  The 
brilliancy  of  his  genius  as  a  statesman  of  the  highest  order  had  just  begun  to 
excite  the  admiration  of  the  nation,  when  the  dark  clouds  of  broken  health  veiled 
it,  and  its  light  soon  waned  into  invisibility.  He  was  a  native  of  Portland, 
Maine,  where  he  was  born  in  1810.  He  received  an  excellent  classical 
education,  and  at  the  age  of  about  eighteen  years  he  went  to  Mississippi, 


898  HENRY   CLAY. 


where,  in  the  vicinity  of  Natchez,  he  spent  about  two  years  as  tutor  in  a 
private  family,  and  in  the  pursuit  of  legal  studies,  under  the  instruction  of 
General  Felix  Houston.  Mr.  Prentiss  was  always  remarkable,  from  boyhood, 
for  fluency  of  language  and  ready  wit ;  and  his  first  speech  to  a  jury,  after  being 
admitted  to  the  bar,  won  for  him  the  highest  applause  from  judges,  colleagues, 
and  opponents.  He  made  Vicksburg  (then  a  small  village)  his  residence,  in 
1830,  and  ho  soon  became  the  acknowledged  head  of  his  profession  in  that  region. 
His  eloquence  was  of  that  popular  order  which  always  charms  and  overpowers ; 
and,  like  O'Connell,  he  could  adapt  his  Vords  and  figures  to  his  particular  audi- 
ence, with  wonderful  facility.  His  practice  became  very  lucrative,  and  the  pay- 
ment of  his  fee,  in  land,  for  his  successful  management  of  a  suit  which  involved 
the  most  valuable  portion  of  Vicksburg,  made  him,  in  a  short  time,  one  of  tho 
wealthiest  men  in  the  State. 

Mr.  Prentiss  entered  the  field  of  politics  with  great  enthusiasm,  and  was  a 
brilliant  and  successful  stump  orator ;  but  at  about  the  time  when  his  fellow- 
citizens  called  him  to  service  in  the  national  councils,  he  became  embarrassed 
during  the  financial  troubles  of  1836,  and  removed  to  New  Orleans  to  retrieve 
his  fortune  by  professional  labor.  He  first  became  known  to  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  in  general,  when,  in  1837,  he  appeared  in  the  House  of  Represent- 
atives as  the  claimant  of  a  disputed  seat  there.  His  speech  in  favor  of  his  claim 
was  listened  to  with  the  most  profound  attention,  and  it  was  admitted  by  all, 
that  he  had  no  superior  in  the  country  as  an  eloquent  and  logical  parliamentary 
debater.  His  claim  was  rejected  by  the  casting-vote  of  the  Speaker,  Mr.  Polk, 
arid  he  was  sent  back  to  the  people.  He  at  once  canvassed  the  State,  and  was 
reflected  by  an  overwhelming  vote.  His  services  in  the  Hall  of  Representatives 
were  brief,  but  brilliant  in  the  extreme.  Private  engagements,  and  a  distaste  ft  r 
political  life,  produced  by  his  discovery  of  its  hollowness  and  its  dangers,  caused 
him  to  refuse  office,  and  with  great  industry  he  applied  himself  to  his  profession, 
in  New  Orleans.  He  was  eminently  successful.  No  man  ever  possessed  greater 
powers  of  fascination  by  his  forensic  oratory  than  he,  and  few  jurors  could  with- 
stand that  power.  Nor  was  he  entirely  absorbed  in  professional  duties.  Ho 
was  distinguished  for  his  love  and  knowledge  of  literature,  and  he  was  always 
prominent  in  philanthropic  movements  in  the  chosen  city  of  his  residence.  His 
social  qualities  were  of  the  highest  order,  and  the  attachment  of  his  friends  was" 
exceedingly  strong.  In  the  midst  of  his  active  career,  and  bearing  the  blossoms 
of  greatest  promise,  he  was  suddenly  cut  down  by  disease,  and  died  at  Long- 
wood,  near  Natchez,  in  the  pleasant  Summer  time. 

"  What  made  more  sad,  the  outward  form's  decay, 
A  soul  of  genius  glimmered  through  the  clay ; 
Genius  has  so  much  youth,  no  care  can  kill, 
Death  seems  unnatural  when  it  sighs,  'Be  still.'" 


HENRY    CLAY. 

4  FEW  miles  from  the  old  Hanover  court-house,  in  Virginia,  where  the  splen- 
dors of  Patrick  Henry's  genius  first  beamed  forth,  is  a  humble  dwelling  by 
the  road-side,  in  the  midst  of  a  poor  region,  technically  called  slashes.  There, 
on  the  12th  of  April,  1777,  Henry  Clay,  the  great  American  statesman,  was  born, 
and  from  the  poor  district  schools  of  his  neighborhood,  he  derived  his  education. 
His  father  was  a  clergyman  with  slender  worldly  means,  and  at  an  early  age 
Henry  became  a  copyist  in  the  office  of  the  clerk  of  the  Court  of  Chancery,  at 


HENRY   CLAY. 


399 


Richmond.  There  the  extraordinary  powers  of  his  intellect  began  to  devclopo, 
and  at  the  ago  of  nineteen  years  ho  commenced  the  study  of  law.  Close  appli- 
cation and  a  remarkably  retentive  memory  overcame  many  difficulties,  and  ho 
was  admitted  to  practice  at  the  age  of  twenty.  At  that  time  emigration  war, 
pouring  steady  streams  of  population  over  the  mountains  into  the  fertile  valleys  of 
Kentucky,  and  thither  Henry  Clay  went,  early  in  1799,  and  settled  at  Lexing- 
ton. He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  there,  in  the  Autumn  of  that  year,  and  com- 
menced the  practice  of  law  and  politics  at  about  the  same  time,  and  with  equal 
success.  A  convention  was  called  to  revise  the  constitution  of  Kentucky,  and 
young  Clay  worked  manfully  in  efforts  to  elect  such  delegates  as  would  favor 
the  emancipation  of  the  slaves.  Thus  early  that  subject  assumed  great  import- 
ance in  his  mind ;  and  throughout  his  long  life  ho  earnestly  desired  the  abolition 
of  the  slave  system.  His  course  offended  many,  and  he  was  unpopular  for  a 
time ;  but  his  noble  opposition  to  the  Alien  and  Sedition  laws  restored  him  to 
favor;  and,  in  1803,  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Kentucky  legislature,  by  a 
large  majority.  With  fluent  speech,  sound  logic,  and  bold  assurance,  he  soon 
took  front  rank  in  that  body,  as  well  as  in  his  profession;  and,  in  1806,  he 
was  chosen  to  fill  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  tho  United  States,  for  one  year,  made 
vacant  by  the  resignation  of  General  Adair.  There  ho  left  an  impression  of  that 


400  IIENKY   CLAY. 


statesmanship,  then  budding,  which  afterward  gave  glory  and  dignity  to  that 
highest  legislative  council  of  the  Republic. 

On  his  return  from  the  Federal  city,  Mr.  Clay  was  again  elected  to  a  seat  in 
the  Kentucky  legislature,  and  was  chosen  Speaker  of  the  Assembly,  by  a  largo 
majority.  That  station  he  held  during  two  consecutive  sessions.  In  1809,  ho 
was  again  sent  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  for  two  years,  to  fill  a  vacanc}-, 
and  there  he  became  distinguished  by  several  brilliant  speeches  on  important 
occasions.  A  crisis  in  the  affairs  of  the  nation  was  then  approaching.  Men  of 
the  highest  character  for  talent  and  integrity  were  needed  in  the  national  coun- 
cils. Perceiving  this,  the  Kentuckians  wisely  elected  Henry  Clay  to  a  seat  in 
the  House  of  Representatives,  at  Washington,  where  ho  first  appeared  in  1811. 
Almost  immediately  afterward,  he  was  elected  Speaker,  by  a  large  majorit}',  and 
he  performed  the  very  important  duties  of  that  station  with  great  ability  until 
1814,  when  he  was  appointed  ono  of  the  commissioners  to  negotiate  a  treaty  of 
peace  with  Great  Britain.  In  that  service  he  exhibited  the  skill  of  a  good 
diplomatist ;  and  when,  in  1815,  ho  returned  to  his  constituents,  they  immediately 
reflected  him  to  a  seat  in  Congress.  Now  commenced  his  series  of  important 
services  in  the  Federal  legislature,  which  have  distinguished  him  as  one  of  the 
first  statesmen  of  his  age.  There  he  triumphantly  pleaded  the  cause  of  the  South 
American  Republics;  and,  in  1818,  he  put  forth  his  giant  strength  in  behalf  of 
a  national  system  of  internal  improvements.  A  grateful  people  commemorated 
his  services  in  that  direction,  by  placing  a  monument  on  the  margin  of  the  great 
Cumberland  road,  inscribed  with  his  name. 

In  1819  and  1820,  Mr.  Clay  entered  upon  the  great  work,  in  Congress,  of 
establishing  tariffs  for  the  protection  of  American  industry.  At  the  same  time,  ho 
rendered  signal  services  in  the  adjustment  of  the  question  known  as  the  Missouri 
compromise.  Then  ho  retired  from  Congress,  to  attend  to  his  embarrassed  private 
affairs.  Three  years  of  professional  services  retrieved  his  pecuniary  losses ;  and  in 
1823,  he  returned  to  Congress,  and  was  elected  Speaker,  by  an  immense  majority. 
During  that  session  Daniel  "Webster  presented  his  famous  resolutions  in  behalf 
of  the  suffering  Greeks,  and  Mr.  Clay  warmly  seconded  the  benevolent  move- 
ment of  the  great  New  England  statesman.  After  the  election  of  John  Quincy 
Adams  to  the  presidency  of  the  United  States,  Mr.  Clay  was  appointed  his  Sec- 
retary of  State,  and  held  tho  office  until  the  accession  of  General  Jackson  to  the 
chief  magistracy,  in  1829.  Ho  remained  in  retirement  a  short  time;  and,  in 
1831,  ho  was  elected  to  tho  Senate  of  the  United  States,  for  six  years.  He  was 
soon  afterward  nominated  for  tho  office  of  President  of  tho  United  States,  and 
was  the  candidate  opposed  to  the  successful  Jackson,  in  1832.  At  about  that 
time  ho  was  instrumental,  by  the  proposition  of  a  compromise  measure  in  Con- 
gress, in  saving  the  country  from  civil  war.  He  was  reflected  to  the  Senate,  in 
183G;  and,  in  1842,  he  took,  as  he  supposed,  a  final  leave  of  that  body.  Ho 
had  earnestly  labored  for  his  favorite  protective  policy;  and,  in  1844,  the  "Whig 
party  nominated  him  for  tho  office  of  President  of  tho  United  States.  Ho  was 
defeated  by  Mr.  Polk,  and  ho  remained  in  retirement  until  1849,  when  he  was 
again  elected  to  the  Federal  Senate.  There  he  put  forth  his  energies  in  securing 
that  series  of  measures  known  as  tho  Compromise  Act  of  1850.  His  health  was 
now  greatly  impaired;  and  in  the  Winter  of  1850  and  1851,  he  sought  relief 
by  a  visit  to  Havana  and  New  Orleans.  The  effort  was  of  no  avail.  Notwith- 
standing his  feeble  health,  he  repaired  to  Washington  city  at  the  commencement 
of  the  session,  but  was  unable  to  participate  in  active  duties.  His  system  grad- 
ually gave  way,  and  he  resigned  his  seat,  the  act  to  take  effect  on  the  6th  of 
September,  1852.  He  did  not  live  to  see  that  day.  He  died  at  Washington 
city,  on  the  29th  of  June,  1852,  at  the  age  of  about  seventy-five  years. 


ROBERT   BURNET.  401 


ROBERT    BTJRNET. 

ON  a  cold,  frosty,  but  clear  and  brilliant  morning  in  November,  1783,  the  rem- 
nant of  the  American  Continental  army,  led  by  General  Knox,  and  accom- 
panied by  civil  officers  of  the  State,  crossed  King's  bridge,  at  the  upper  end  of 
Manhattan  Island,  and  marched  triumphantly  into  the  city  of  New  York,  just  as 
the  British  troops,  who  had  occupied  that  city  for  seven  long  years,  embarked  in 
the  harbor,  to  return  no  more.  Great  rejoicings  and  feastings  were  had  in  the 
emancipated  city ;  and  nine  days  afterward,  the  principal  officers  of  the  army, 
yet  remaining  in  the  service,  assembled  at  the  public-house  of  Samuel  Fraunce, 
on  the  corner  of  Broad  and  Pearl  Streets,  to  take  a  final  leave  of  their  beloved 
commander-in-chief.  When  "Washington  entered  the  room  where  they  were 
waiting,  he  took  a  glass  of  wine  in  his  hand,  and  said,  "  With  a  full  heart  of  love 
and  gratitude,  I  now  take  leave  of  you.  I  most  devoutly  wish  that  your  latter 
days  may  be  as  prosperous  and  happy  as  your  former  ones  have  been  glorious 
and  honorable."  After  the  usual  salutation,  by  drinking,  he  continued,  "I  can- 
not come  to  each  of  you  to  take  my  leave,  but  shall  be  obliged  to  you  if  each 
will  come  and  take  me  by  the  hand."  Knox  stood  by  the  side  of  the  Great 
Leader,  and  as  he  turned,  with  eyes  brimming  with  tears,  to  grasp  his  hand, 
Washington  affectionately  kissed  him.  This  he  did  to  all  of  his  officers  in  turn, 
and  then,  without  uttering  a  word,  he  left  the  room,  passed  through  a  flanking 
corps  of  infantry  to  a  barge  at  Whitehall,  and  proceeded  on  his  journey  to  An- 
napolis, to  surrender  his  commission  into  the  hands  of  Congress. 

Of  all  the  officers  who  participated  in  that  tender  scene,  Major  Robert  Burnet, 
of  Little  Britain,  Orange  county,  was,  for  many  years,  the  sole  survivor.  His 
father  was  a  Scotchman,  and  his  mother  was  a  native  of  Ireland.  She  was  one 
of  those  who  accompanied  the  first  members  of  the  Clinton  family,  who  settled 
in  the  vicinity  of  Newburgh.  Major  Burnet  was  born  in  Little  Britain,  on  the 
22d  of  February,  1762,  and  was  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits  until  about 
1779,  when  he  entered  the  revolutionary  army,  in  the  artillery  branch  of  the 
service,  under  Captain  Ebenezer  Stevens.1  He  was  a  lieutenant  in  Stevens' 
company,  and  commanded  Redoubt  No.  3,  at  West  Point,  at  the  time  of  Arnold's 
defection,  in  September,  1780.  He  was  afterward  promoted  to  the  rank  of 
major,2  and  was  one  of  the  delegates  who  attended  a  meeting  of  the  officers, 
convened  by  Washington,  on  account  of  the  seditious  tendency  of  the  anonymous 
Address  put  forth  by  Major  Armstrong,  at  Newburgh,  in  the  Spring  of  1783.3 
He  continued  in  the  army,  under  the  immediate  command  of  the  chief,  until  it 
was  disbanded.  In  the  march  into  the  city  of  New  York,  on  the  day  when  the 
British  evacuated  it,  Major  Burnet  commanded  the  rear-guard.  When  I  visited 
the  veteran,  in  the  Summer  of  1850,  and  he  was  then  in  his  nintieth  year,  he 
gave  me  a  very  interesting  account  of  the  scenes  of  that  memorable  Autumn 
morning.  Major  Burnet  was  the  last  to  grasp  the  hand  of  Washington  at  that 
solemn  parting  at  Fraunce's ;  and  then  he  returned  to  his  rural  pursuits  in  the 
town  of  his  nativity.  There  he  lived  in  the  enjoyment  of  great  domestic  happi- 
ness, until  called  to  his  final  home.  He  lived  to  see,  what  few  men  in  modern 
times  have  beheld — the  living  representatives  of  seven  generations  of  his  kin- 

1.  See  sketch  of  Ebene/.er  Stevens. 

2.  Washington,  in  a  letter  to  Greene,  dated  "  Newburgh,  6th  February,  1"82,"  refers  to  Major  Burnet 
as  follows  :  "  I  intended  to  write  you  a  long  letter  on  sundry  matters  :  but  Major  Burnet  came  unex- 
pectedly, at  a  time  when  I  was  preparing  for  the  celebration  of  the  day,  and  was  just  going  to  a  review 
of  the  troops  previous  to  lhe/e«  dejoie.     As  he  is  impatient,  from  an  apprehension  that  the  sleighing 
may  fail,  and  as  he  can  give  you  the  occurrences  of  this  quarter  more  in  detail,  than  I  have  time  to  do,  I 
will  refer  you  to  him."     The  celebration  spoken  of  was  that  of  the  anniversary  of  the  signing  of  too 
treaty  of  alliance  bctwoe"  the  United  Slate*  and  France,  four  years  before. 

3.  See  sketch  of  John  Aimstrong. 


402  HARRISON   GRAY   OTIS. 

dred.  These  were  his  great-grandfather  of  the  ancestral  part  of  tho  connection, 
and  the  great-grandchildren  of  his  own  posterity.  Major  Burnet  died  at  his 
residence,  in  Little  Britain,  on  the  1st  of  December,  1854,  when  almost  ninety- 
three  years  of  age.  His  funeral  was  attended  by  his  neighbor,  Usual  Knapp, 
who  was  almost  three  years  his  senior.  He  is  yet  [1855]  living,  tho  last  sur- 
vivor of  Washington's  Life  Guard.1 


HARRISON    QRAY    OTIS. 

OF  tho  New  England  "gentlemen  of  tho  old  school,"  who  havo  graced  our 
generation,  and  illustrated  by  their  deportment  tho  dignified  simplicity  of 
the  earlier  years  of  our  Republic,  the  late  Harrison  Gray  Otis  was  one  of  the 
finest  examples  in  person,  intellectual  acquirements,  and  amenity  of  manners. 
He  was  a  son  of  Samuel  A.  Otis,  who,  for  about  twenty-five  years,  was  clerk  of 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  Harrison  was  born  in  1765,  the  memorablo 
year  when  patriots  of  his  name  were  manfully  battling  tho  odious  Stamp  Act. 
And  the  same  year  when,  by  definitive  treaty,  the  independence  of  the  United 
States  was  acknowledged  by  Great  Britain,  he  was  graduated  at  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, at  the  age  of  eighteen  years.  He  had  been  a  successful  student,  and  ho 
then  entered  upon  the  study  of  law  with  a  preparation  possessed  by  few  young 
men.  Before  ho  was  twenty-one  years  of  age  he  had  commenced  his  successful 
career  as  a  practitioner,  with  promises  which  were  all  redeemed  in  his  maturity. 
He  soon  stood  foremost  at  the  bar  with  such  men  as  Parsons,  Lowell,  Gore, 
Gushing,  Paine,  Ames,  Cabot,  and  other  distinguished  lawyers  of  New  England, 
and  was  excelled  by  none  of  them  in  acuteness  as  an  attorney,  and  in  impressive 
and  graceful  oratory  as  an  advocate.  His  political  and  literary  acquirements 
were  as  extensive  as  his  legal  knowledge,  and  he  often  employed  them  with 
groat  success  before  tho  bench,  or  an  intelligent  jury. 

In  1797,  Mr.  Otis  represented  the  Suffolk  (Boston)  district  in  the  Federal  Con- 
gress, as  the  successor  of  Fisher  Ames;  and  he  held  that  station  until  1801, 
when  the  Republicans  came  into  power  under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Jefferson. 
For  many  years  he  was  a  member,  alternately,  of  both  branches  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts legislature,  and,  at  different  times  he  was  the  presiding  officer  of  both 
Houses.  Although  firm  and  unflinching  in  his  political  faith,  and  exceedingly 
strict  as  a  disciplinarian  in  official  station,  his  urbanity  and  rare  consistency 
commanded  the  respect  of  his  opponents  and  the  warmest  affections  of  his  ad- 
herents. He  was  eminently  reliable,  heartily  disliked  concealment,  and  despised 
stratagem.  His  constituents  always  felt  their  interests  perfectly  safe  in  his  hands. 

Mr.  Otis  was  chosen  United  States  Senator,  in  1817,  and  his  course  in  that 
body  during  the  exciting  scenes  preceding  the  admission  of  Missouri  into  tho 
Union  as  a  sovereign  State,  won  for  him  the  highest  applause  of  his  constituents. 
After  five  years'  service  there  he  retired,  and  contemplated  repose  in  private  life ; 
but  his  fellow-citizens  of  the  Federal  faith,  for  which  he  had  contended  manfully 
against  the  growing  Democratic  party,  in  his  State,  begged  him  to  continue  his 
leadership.  They  nominated  him  for  governor,  in  1823,  but  the  Federal  party, 
as  an  efficient  organization,  was  then  just  expiring,  and  he  was  defeated.  After 
filling  several  local  offices  (judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  mayor  of  Boston, 
and  others  of  less  note),  Mr.  Otis  withdrew  from  public  life,  in  the  full  enjoyment 
of  his  intellectual  vigor  and  his  rare  capacities  for  social  pleasures.  That  vigor 
he  retained  until  his  death,  which  occurred  in  the  city  of  Boston,  on  the  28th  of 
October,  1848,  at  the  age  of  about  eighty-three  years. 

1.  Portraits  of  Major  Burnet  and  Mr.  Knapp  are  published  in  Lossing's  Pictorial  Field- Book  of  the 
Revolution. 


DAVID   KINNISON.  403 


DAVID    KINNISON. 

THE  latest  survivor  of  tlio  notable  band  of  patriots,  in  17*73,  known  as  The 
Boston  Tea  Party,1  was  David  Kinnison,  who  lived  to  the  remarkable  age 
of  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifteen  years.  The  facts  of  this  brief  memoir  were 
obtained  from  his  own  lips,  by  the  writer,  in  August,  1848,  together  with  a 
daguerreotype  likeness.  Ho  was  then  one  hundred  and  eleven  years  of  age. 
He  was  born  in  Old  Kingston,  Maine,  on  the  17th  of  November,  1736,  and  was 
employed  in  farming  until  the  tempest  of  the  Revolution  began  to  lower.  Ho 
was  a  member  of  a  secret  club,  who  were  pledged  to  destroy  the  obnoxious 
article  of  TEA,  wheresoever  it  might  be  found ;  and  when  the  East  India  Com- 
pany's ships  had  arrived  at  Boston,  Kinnison  and  others  hastened  thither,  were 
among  the  "Mohawks"'  in  the  gallery  of  the  Old  South  Church,  and  assisted  in 
casting  the  two  cargoes  of  tea  into  the  waters  of  Boston  harbor,  on  the  evening 
of  the  16th  of  December,  1773.  Kinnison  remained  in  the  vicinity  of  the  New 
England  capital,  working  on  a  farm,  until  the  Spring  of  1775,  when,  as  a  minute- 
man,  he  participated  in  the  events  at  Lexington  and  Concord.  With  his  father 
and  two  brothers,  ho  fought  in  the  battle  of  Bunker's  Hill ;  and  after  the  British 
were  driven  from  Boston,  he  accompanied  the  American  army  to  New  York. 
From  that  time  until  the  Autumn  of  1781,  he  led  the  life  of  a  Continental  sol- 
dier, under  the  immediate  command  of  Washington  most  of  the  time.  Then, 
while  engaged  as  a  scout  in  Saratoga,  he  was  captured  by  some  Mohawk  Indians, 
and  did  not  regain  his  liberty  untU  peace  came,  after  a  captivity  of  more  than 
eighteen  months. 

At  the  close  of  the  Revolution,  Mr.  Kinnison  resumed  the  labors  of  agricul- 
ture, at  Danville,  Vermont,  where  ho  resided  about  eight  years,  and  then  re- 
moved to  Wells,  in  Maine.  There  he  lived  until  the  commencement  of  the  war 
with  Great  Britain,  in  1812,  when  he  again  went  to  the  field  as  a  private  soldier, 
lie  was  under  General  Brown  at  Sackett's  harbor;  and  in  the  battle  at  Williams- 
burg,  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  ho  was  badly  wounded  in  the  hand  by  a  grape-shot. 
That  was  the  first  and  only  injury  he  had  ever  received  in  battle,  but  by  acci- 
dents afterward,  his  skull  had  been  fractured ;  his  collar  bone  and  both  legs, 
below  the  knees,  had  been  broken ;  the  heel  of  a  horse  had  left  a  deep  scar  on 
his  forehead,  and  rheumatism  had  dislocated  one  of  his  hip  joints.  As  ho  forcibly 
expressed  it,  he  had  been  "completely  bunged  up  and  stove  in." 

Mr.  Kinnison  was  an  illiterate  man,  and  possessed  none  of  the  elements  of 
greatness.  He  was  eminent  because  of  the  peculiar  associations  of  his  life,  his 
long  experience,  and  his  remarkable  longevity.  He  learned  to  write  his  name 
when  in  the  revolutionary  camp ;  and  he  was  sixty -two  years  of  ago  when  his 
granddaughter  taught  him  to  read.  He  had  married  and  buried  four  wives, 
who  had  borne  him  twenty-two  children.  When  he  related  this  narrative,  ho 
had  lost  all  trace  of  his  relatives,  and  supposed  himself  childless.3  His  pension 
of  eight  dollars  a  month  was  insufficient  for  his  wants,  and  until  his  one  hundred 
and  tenth  year,  he  added  sufficient  for  a  livelihood,  by  the  labor  of  his  hands. 
Then  a  benevolent  stranger,  in  Chicago,  gave  him  a  home.  He  was  little  less 
than  six  feet  in  height,  with  powerful  arms,  shoulders,  and  chest ;  and  at  the 

1.  See  note  3,  page  148. 

2.  Many  of  those  who  cast  the  tea  into  Boston  harbor  were  disguised  as  Mohawk  Ir.dians.     After  a 
harangue  in  the  Old  South  Church,  Boston,  just  at  twilight,  some  of  them  gave  a  war-whoop  in  the  gal- 
lery, and  all  started  for  Griffin's  wharf,  where  the  ships  lay. 

3.  About  a  year  before  his  death,  his  daughter,  living  in  Oswego,  New  York,  saw  the  portrait  ami 
biographical  sketch  of  her  long-lost  father,  in  Lowing'*  Pictorial  Field-Book  of  the  Revolution.     She  at 
once  hastened  to  Chicago  to  see  him.     Until  then,  she  had  no  idea  that  he  was  among  the  living.    Sho 
remained  with  him,  and  smoothed  the  pillow  of  his  death-bed. 


404:  CATHERINE   FERGUSON. 

age  of  one  hundred  and  two  years,  he  was  seen  to  lift  a  barrel  of  cider  into  a 
wagon,  with  ease.  When  one  hundred  and  ten,  he  walked  twenty  miles  in  one 
day.  At  eighty,  his  sight  and  hearing  failed.  Both  were  restored  at  ninety- 
five,  and  remained  quite  perfect  until  his  death.  That  venerable  man  died  at 
Chicago,  Illinois,  on  the  24th  of  February,  1852,  in  the  one  hundred  and  six- 
teenth year  of  his  ago. 


CATHERINE    FERQUSON. 

"TVHIS  poor  widow  hath  cast  in  more  than  they  all;  for  they  did  cast  in  of 
L  their  abundance,  but  she,  of  her  penury,  hath  cast  in  all  the  living  that 
she  had."  Such  was  the  estimate  of  good  works  by  the  Great  Pattern  of  benev- 
olence. The  motive  and  the  sacrifice  alone  are  considered ;  the  person  and  tho 
condition  are  but  li  dust  in  the  balance."  Thus  judged,  Katy  Ferguson  seems 
entitled  to  the  plaudit  from  men,  angels,  and  her  God,  "  Well  done,  good  and 
faithful  servant."  Katy  was  a  colored  woman,  born  a  slave  while  her  mother 
was  on  her  passage  from  Virginia  to  New  York.  For  almost  fifty  years  she  was 
known  in  that  city  as  a  professional  cake-maker,  for  weddings  and  other  parties, 
and  was  held  in  the  highest  esteem. 

When  Katy  was  eight  years  of  age  her  mother  was  sold,  and  they  never  rnc  t 
again.  Her  own  anguish  at  parting  taught  her  to  sympathize  with  desolate 
children,  and  they  became  the  great  care  of  her  life.  Her  mistress  was  kind  and 
indulgent,  and  Katy  was  allowed  to  attend  Divine  service,  and  hear  the  instruc- 
tions of  the  good  Dr.  John  M.  Mason,  the  elder.  She  never  learned  to  read,  but 
her  retentive  memory  treasured  up  a  vast  amount  of  Scripture  knowledge,  which 
she  dispensed  as  opportunity  allowed.  When  she  approached  womanhood  her 
mind  became  agitated  respecting  her  soul  and  its  destiny,  and  she  ventured  to 
call  on  Dr.  Mason  for  advice  and  consolation.  She  went  with  trembling,  and 
was  met  by  the  kind  pastor  with  an  inquiry  whether  she  had  come  to  talk  to 
him  about  her  soul.  The  question  took  a  burden  from  her  feelings,  and  she  left 
the  presence  of  the  good  man  with  a  heart  full  of  joy. 

A  benevolent  lady  purchased  Katy's  freedom  for  two  hundred  dollars,  when 
she  was  sixteen  years  of  age,  and  allowed  her  one  hundred  of  it,  for  eleven 
months'  service.  The  excellent  Divie  Bethune  raised  the  other  hundred,  and 
Katy  became  free.  She  married  at  eighteen,  had  two  children,  and  lost  them, 
and  from  that  time  she  put  forth  pious  efforts  for  the  good  of  bereaved  and  des- 
olate little  ones.  At  her  humble  dwelling  in  Warren  Street,  she  collected  tho 
poor  and  neglected  children  of  the  neighborhood,  white  and  black,  every  Sun- 
day, to  be  instructed  in  religious  things  by  herself,  and  such  white  people  as  she 
could  get  to  help  her.  Sometimes  the  sainted  Isabella  Graham  would  invite 
Katy  and  her  scholars  to  her  house,  and  there  hear  them  recite  the  catechism, 
and  give  them  instruction.  Finally,  Dr.  Mason1  heard  of  her  school,  and  visited 
it  one  Sunday  morning.  "  What  are  you  about  here,  Katy  ?"  he  asked.  "  Keep- 
ing school  on  the  Sabbath !"  Katy  was  troubled,  for  she  thought  his  question  a 
rebuke.  "  This  must  not  be,  Katy ;  you  must  not  be  allowed  to  do  all  this 
work  alone,"  he  continued;  and  then  he  invited  her  to  transfer  her  school  to 
the  basement  of  his  new  church  in  Murray  Street,  where  he  procured  assistants 
for  her.  Such  was  the  origin  of  the  Murray  Street  Sabbath-school ;  and  it  is 

1.  This  was  the  son  and  pulpit  su-  ce  <or  of  Dr.  Mason,  the  elder,  under  whom  Katy  became  converted. 
That  excellent  pastor  died  soon  aftei  t  .J  interview  named  in  the  text,  at  the  age  of  fifty-seven  years. 


CATHERINE   FERGUSON. 


405 


believed  that  Katy  Ferguson's  was  the  first  school  of  the  kind  established  in  the 
city  of  New  York.1 

Katy's  benevolent  labors  did  not  end  with  her  Sunday-school  duties.  Every 
Friday  evening  and  Sunday  afternoon  she  gathered  the  poor  and  outcast  of  her 
neighborhood,  children  and  adults,  white  and  black,  into  her  little  dwelling,  and 
always  secured  some  good  man  to  conduct  the  services  of  a  prayer-meeting  there. 
Such  was  her  habit  for  forty  years,  wherever  in  the  great  city  she  dwelt.  Her 
good  influence  was  always  palpable ;  and  tract  distributors  uniformly  testified 
that  wherever  Katy  resided,  the  neighborhood  improved.  Nor  was  this  all. 
Though  laboring  for  daily  bread  at  small  remuneration,  she  cheerfully  divided 
her  pittance  with  unsparing  generosity.  She  always  found  some  more  needy 
than  herself;  and  during  her  life,  she  took  FORTY-EIGHT  CHILDREN  (twenty  of 
them  white)  from  the  almshouse  or  from  dissolute  parents,  and  brought  them  up 
or  kept  them  until  she  could  find  good  homes  for  them  !  Who  shall  estimate  the 
social  blessings  which  have  flowed  from  those  labors  of  love  by  a  poor,  unedu- 
cated colored  woman !  Do  not  those  labors  rebuke,  as  with  a  tongue  of  fire,  the 
cold  selfishness  of  society?  Ought  they  not  to  make  our  cheeks  tingle  with  the 
blush  of  shame  for  our  remissness  in  duty  ?  The  example  of  such  a  life  ought 
not  to  be  lost;  and  T  have  endeavored  thus  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  Katy 
Ferguson  and  her  deeds  for  the  benefit  of  posterity.2  She  was  a  philanthropist 
of  truest  stamp.  Her  earthly  labors  have  ceased.  She  died  of  cholera,  in  New 
York,  on  the  llth  of  July,  1854,  at  the  age  of  about  seventy-five  years.  Her 
last  words  were,  "  All  is  well."  Who  can  doubt  it? 

1.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Ferris,  now  [1855]  chancellor  of  the  New  York  University,  informed  the  writer  that 
his  first  extemporary  expositions  of  the  Scriptures,  while  he  was  yet  a  theological  student,  were  made  in 
Katy's  Sunday-school,  in  the  Murray  Street  Church. 

2.  The  accompanying  portrait  is  from  a  daguerreotype  taken  in  1850,  at  the  instance  of  Lewis  Tappan, 
Esq.,  of  New  York,  and  now  iu  the  possession  of  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  of  Brooklyn. 


406  JOHN  W.  FKANCIS,  JK. 


JOtIN    \V.    FRANCIS,   JR. 

IN  the  roseate  petal  bursting  from  the  calyx  in  Spring-time,  we  see  sure 
promises  of  the  fruit  in  Autumn ;  and  if  the  frost  or  the  canker  withers  it, 
we  mourn  as  reasonably  as  when  the  frost  or  the  canker  blights  at  full  fruition. 
So  with  the  soul  in  its  calyx  of  humanity.     In  its  budding  promises, 

"  Ere  fame  ordained  or  genius  had  achieved," 

wo  often  behold  greatness,  and  goodness,  and  all  else  that  ennobles  man,  benefits 
the  world,  and  honors  the  Creator,  as  clearly  manifested  as  in  the  fruit  of  full 
consummation.  When  one  like  our  young  friend  of  whom  we  write  is  taken 
from  among  men,  at  the  full  bursting  of  the  buds  of  promise  which  prophesy  of 
a  brilliant  and  useful  career,  society  is  bereaved,  indeed,  for  it  is  denied'  the 
benefits  of  great  achievements. 

John  W.  Francis,  jr.,  was  the  eldest  son  of  Dr.  John  W.  Francis,  the  well- 
known,  well-beloved,  and  eminent  physician  and  scholar.  lie  was  born  in  tho 
city  of  New  York,  on  the  5th  of  July,  1832.  From  the  dawn  of  life  he  lived  in 
the  midst  of  intellectual  influences  of  the  highest  and  purest  kind.  His  father's 
house  was  the  welcome  resort  of  men  distinguished  in  science,  art,  and  literature ; 
and  in  the  domestic  circle  his  heart  and  mind  were  the  daily  and  hourly  recipients 
of  the  noblest  culture.  His  wise  father  watched  his  physical  development  with 
great  care,  and  he  grew  to  manhood  with  robust  health.  "With  such  prepara- 
tions he  entered  upon  the  tasks  and  pleasures  of  the  school-room.  He  sought 
knowledge  with  a  miser's  greed,  but  not  with  a  miser's  sordid  aim ;  for,  like  his 
father,  he  delighted  as  much  in  distributing  as  in  gathering.  Habituated  from 
infancy  to  the  society  of  tho  mature,  he  was  always  manly  beyond  his  years. 
His  love  of  reading,  and  his  free  personal  intercourse  with  tho  distinguished  as- 
sociates and  visitors  of  his  father,  intensified  his  thirst  for  knowledge,  and  made 
its  acquisition  easy.  When,  in  1848,  he  entered  Columbia  College  as  a  student, 
he  was  remarkable  for  general  information.  He  was  already  familiar  with  the 
works  and  thoughts  of  the  best  English  writers,  and  was  an  adept  in  the  critic's 
difficult  art.  His  collegiate  course  was  in  the  highest  degree  honorable,  and  ho 
completed  it  with  a  thoroughness  of  discipline  and  culture,  possessed  by  few. 
He  had  become  proficient  in  the  classics  and  other  regular  studies  in  the  'usual 
course,  and  wrote  and  spoke  fluently  several  modern  languages.  Fully  equipped 
for  the  great  battle  of  life,  he  chose  tho  medical  profession  as  his  chief  theatre  of 
action.  He  was  led  to  it  by  his  preference,  and  by  intense  filial  devotion ;  for 
he  loved  his  father  as  such  a  father  deserves  to  be  loved,  and  earnestly  desired 
to  relieve  that  good  man's  professional  toil.  Ho  made  thorough  preparations  for 
the  duties  he  was  about  to  assume,  by  attendance  upon  medical  lectures,  and 
extensive  practical  study  in  the  Hospital.  There  he  assumed  duties  of  great 
responsibility.  He  took  special  delight  in  treating  poor  patients,  for  whom  he 
always  had  the  balm  of  kind  words,  and  often  relieved  their  immediate  neces- 
sities by  contributions  from  his  own  purse.  Thus,  in  intense  study  and  important 
practice,  he  was  preparing  for  the  reception  of  his  degree  and  diploma  as  a 
physician,  with  all  the  zeal  of  an  ardent  worshipper.  The  labor  was  too  great 
for  even  his  strong  mind  and  vigorous  body.  Both  were  overwrought,  and  ho 
fell  in  the  harness.  A  typhoid  fever  bore  him  rapidly  to  the  grave.  On  tho 
20th  of  January,  1855,  his  spirit  returned  to  the  bosom  of  its  Creator,  while  tho 
stricken  parents — 

"  Two — whoso  gray  hairs  with  daily  joy  he  crowned," 

mourned  in  the  midst  of  sympathizing  friends,  but  not  as  those  without  hope. 


JOHN   W.  FRANCIS,  JK. 


407 


His  body  was  followed  to  the  temple  and  the  tomb  by  many  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished citizens  of  New  York ;  his  class-mates  of  Columbia  College  and  of 
the  University  Medical  School ;  and  by  almost  every  member  of  the  New  York 
Academy  of  Medicine.  The  press  testified  its  sense  of  the  public  loss  by  his 
departure ;  his  associates  gathered  and  expressed  their  appreciation  of  his  worth, 
by  appropriate  resolutions ;  a  beautiful  commemorative  poem  flowed  from  the 
graceful  pen  of  his  friend,  Henry  T.  Tuckerman ;  and  our  Lyric  Poet,  George  P. 
Morris,  wrote  for  his  epitaph — 

"  He  was  the  pulse-beat  of  our  hearts, 

The  love-light  of  our  eyes  ! 
When  such  a  man  from  earth  departs, 
'Tis  the  suryivor  dies." 


. 

-'  f 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


100m-8,'65(F6282s8)2373 


CT47.L6 


3  2106  00024  3136 


